Demonstratio evangelica: text

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In which Scriptures the Christ is foretold by Name as plotted against by Kings and Rulers, Nations and Peoples, being begotten of God Himself, and called the Son of Man, receiving the Inheritance of the Nations and of the Ends of the Earth from His Father.

[Passages quoted, Ps. ii. 1, 2, 7, 8 ]

IN these words the Holy Spirit very clearly addresses (d) Christ, and calls Him the Son of God, as has been said before, and at the same time indicates that there will be a plot against Him, and foretells the calling of the Gentiles as brought about through Him. And all this the course of events has shewn to be exactly fulfilled by the actual - 204 - facts in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. For even now nations, rulers, peoples and kings have not yet ceased their combined attack on Him and His teaching. And if the Jews prefer to refer these predictions to some time yet to come, they ought to agree that their expected Christ will again be plotted against, according to the present (183) oracle: "The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ." Which they would never grant, inasmuch as they expect the coming Christ to be a great Ruler, and an eternal King, and their Ransomer. But supposing their Christ should indeed come and suffer the same as He Who has already come, why ought we to believe or disbelieve in theirs rather than ours?

And if they cannot give an answer to this, but proceed (b) to refer the oracle to David or some one of the Jewish kings of his stock, even then we can shew, that neither David nor any other celebrated Hebrew is recorded to have been proclaimed as Son of God by the oracle, nor as begotten of God, as was the subject of the prophecy in the Psalm, nor to have ruled over nations, kings, rulers and people while involved in plots. Wherefore if none of them (c) is found so to have done, whereas all this agrees in actual fact in His case, both in His patience long ago, and in the attack made on Him to-day as the Christ of God by kings and rulers, nations and peoples, what hinders Him from being the subject of the prophecy in the words which said, "The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ"?

And what follows in the Psalm would agree with Him alone, where it says: "The Lord said to me, Thou art my Son. To-day have I begotten thee. Desire of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and (d) the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession." For surely only in Him has this part of the prophecy received an indubitable fulfilment, since the voice of His disciples has gone forth into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. And the passage distinctly names Christ, saying as in His own person, that He is the Son of God, when it says: "The Lord said unto me, Thou art my Son. To-day I have begotten thee." With which you may - 205 - compare the words in the Proverbs, also spoken in His own Person: "Before the mountains were established, before all the hills he brings me forth." And also the address by the Father to Him in Psalm cix.: "I begat thee from my womb before the Morning Star." Understand then how the holy Scriptures prophesy that one and the same Being, Christ by name, Who is also Son of God, is to be plotted against by men, to receive the nations for His inheritance, and to rule over the ends of the earth, shewing His dispensation among men by two proofs: the one being the attacks upon Him, and the other the subjection of the nations to Him.

Psalm xix.

Christ named, receiving all His Requests from His Father.

"5. The Lord fulfil all thy requests. | 6. Now I know (b) that the Lord has saved His Christ, | and will hear him from his holy heaven. | "

Since it is now my object to shew in how many places the Christ is mentioned by name in the prophecies, I naturally set before you those which plainly foretell the Christ. And all this Psalm voices a prayer as spoken by holy men to the Person of Christ. For since for our sakes (c) and on our behalf He received insult when He had become man, we are taught to join our prayers with His as He prays and supplicates the Father on our behalf, as one who repels attacks against us both visible and invisible. And so we speak to Him as such in the Psalm.

"1. The Lord hear thee in the day of affliction |, the name of the God of Jacob shield thee. 2. May he send thee help from his holy (place) |, and strengthen thee from Zion. |"

And then, since it is fitting for Him, as being our great High Priest, to offer the spiritual sacrifices of praise and (d) words to God on our behalf, and since as a priest He offered both Himself, and the Humanity which He assumed on earth as a whole burnt-offering for us, to God and the Father, we therefore say to Him:

" 4. May he remember all thy sacrifice, | and fatten thy burnt sacrifice. | " - 206 -

And since all that He plans is saving and useful to the world, we rightly call on Him:

"5. The Lord give thee thy heart's desire,"

saying:

"And fulfil all thy mind."

And afterwards remembering His Resurrection from the dead, we say:

(185) "6. We will exult in thy salvation."

For what else could the salvation of Christ be, but His Resurrection from the dead, by which also He raises all the fallen? Next we say:

"8b. And we will triumph in the name of our God: and the Lord fulfil all thy requests."

And to crown all we are taught to say:

"7. Now I know that the Lord has saved his Christ."

As if we had not known it before, we understand His Salvation in perceiving the power of His Resurrection.

Psalm xxvii.

Christ named as having the Father as His Lord and Shield.

(b) "8. The Lord is the strength of his people, | and is the shield of salvation of his Christ."

The Psalm we are considering also is referred to Christ, including the prayer of Christ which He prayed at the time of His Passion, and therefore in the opening of the Psalm He says:

"1. To thee, O Lord, have I cried: My God, | be not silent before me, | Lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit. |"

To which the divine and prophetic Spirit adds:

" 8. The Lord is the strength of his people, and the shield | of his Christ."

Teaching us that all the wonders of Christ written in the - 207 - holy Scriptures, done for man's salvation, whether teachings (d) or writings, or the mysteries of His Resurrection now referred to, were all done by the will and power of the Father defending His own Christ as with a shield in all His marvellous and saving words and works.

Psalm lxxxiv.

Christ described by Name as God the Overseer, and the One Day of His Resurrection, and the One House of God, His Church.

"9. Behold, O God, our defender, | and look upon (186) the face of thy Christ. | 10. For one day in thy courts is better than a thousand. | I have chosen to abase myself in the house of rny God, rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners | ."

They who know the Christ of God to be the Word, the Wisdom, the True Light and the Life, and then realize that He became man, are struck by the miracle of His Will, so that they exclaim:

"And we saw him, | and he had no form nor beauty. [Isa. liii. 2.] 3. But his form was ignoble, and inferior to that of the sons of men. He was a man in suffering, and (b) knowing the bearing of affliction, because he turned away his face, he was dishonoured."

They rightly call on God to look upon the Face of the Christ, dishonoured and insulted for our sake, and to be merciful to us for His sake. "For He bore our sins, and on our behalf is pained." Thus they beseech, altogether desiring and expressing in their prayer the desire to see the face of the glory of Christ, and to behold the day of His light. And this was the day of His Resurrection from the dead, which they say, as being the one and only truly Holy Day and the Lord's Day, is better than any number (c) of days as we ordinarily understand them, and better than the days set apart by the Mosaic Law for Feasts, New Moons and Sabbaths, which the Apostle teaches are the shadow of days and not days in reality. And this Lord's Day of our Saviour is alone said to shew its light not in - 208 - every place but only in the courts of the Lord. And these must mean the Churches of Christ throughout the world, which are courts of the one House of God, in which he (d) who knows these things loves and chooses to be abased, prizing far more the time spent in them than that spent in the tabernacles of sinners. Unless we are to understand that everyone who chooses the synagogues of the Jews, which deny the Christ of God, or those of godless sectaries and other unbelieving heathen, professes them to be better than the Churches of Christ.

Psalm lxxxviii.

Christ named as made of None Account, and suffering shamefully, and His People reviled by the Enemy in Exchange for Him.

(187) "39. But thou hast cast off and made of no account, | thou hast rejected thy Christ, | 40. and overthrown the covenant of thy servant, | Thou hast desecrated his sanctuary even to the ground. | "

And the context. To which he adds:

"51. Remember, Lord, the reproach of thy servants, | which I have borne in my bosom, even (the reproach) of many nations, | 52. wherewith thine enemies, O Lord, have reviled, | wherewith they have reviled those who suffer in exchange for thy Christ."

Christ is here clearly mentioned by name, and the circumstances attending His Passion predicted. If I had time (b) I could shew by examining the whole Psalm that what is expressed can only apply to our Lord and Saviour, and no one else. But when Christ is named the second time here it refers to some one else than Him, in exchange for whom He is the one taken, and the Church is plainly meant, and indeed those who are called Christ's enemies have reviled it, and even now revile it. Yea, every one opposed to Christ's teaching is wont to revile us about the Sufferings of our Saviour, which He underwent for us, and especially about His Cross and Passion. - 209 -

Psalm cxxxi.

Christ named as rising from the Seed of David, called the (c) Horn of David, bringing to Shame the Jews His Enemies, restoring the Sanctuary of the Father.

"11. The Lord sware to David the truth, and he will never set him at naught, | of the fruit of thy body I will set upon thy seat."

And lower down,

"17. There will I lift up the horn of David, | I have prepared a lantern for my Christ: | 18. As for his enemies I will clothe them with shame, j but upon himself shall blossom my holiness. | "

Now here the Lord swears about one of the seed of David, (d) Whom He calls His seed and horn. And again addressing Christ by name, He says that He has prepared a lantern for Him, which seems to refer to the prophetic word, which shewed the coming of Christ before, Who alone, like the light of the sun, has now risen on all men through the whole world. And David Himself was prepared as a lantern for the Christ, taking the place of a lantern in comparison with the perfect light of the sun. And then He says: "I will lift up the horn," shewing the place where He means Christ to be born. For when David is praying that he may behold before in spirit the place of Christ's birth, and saying: (188)

"3. I will not go into the tabernacle of my house, | I will not climb to the couch of my bed. | 4. I will not give sleep to my eyes, nor slumber to my eyelids, | nor rest to my temples, | 5. until I find a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. |"

—the Holy Spirit reveals the place as Bethlehem. Therefore he proceeds:

"6. Behold we heard of it in Ephralha | (that is, Bethlehem), and we found it in the fields of the wood. | 7. We will go into his tabernacle, we will worship (b) in the place, where his feet stood. | " - 210 -

And suitably after this revelation He adds:

"There will I lift up the horn of David, I have prepared a lantern for my Christ."

(c) Maybe also the Body assumed by Christ at Bethlehem may be meant, since the Divine Power inhabiting it through His body as through an earthen vessel, like a lamp, shot forth to all men the rays of the Divine Light of the Word.

From Amos.

Christ announced by Name by God, and made known to All Men as liberating the Jewish Race.

[Passage quoted, Amos. iv. 12—v. 2.]

God now proclaiming the Christ by name the seventh time is said to "strengthen the thunder" and "to create the wind," the proclamation of the Gospel being called thunder from its being heard by all men, and similarly the spirit that Christ breathed on His apostles is meant; and also the Saviour's sojourn among men has clearly fulfilled the prophecy in which God is said to make "morning" and "mist" together, morning for those that receive salvation, but for the Jews that disbelieve in Him the contrary. On (189) whom also Scripture foretells an extreme curse, adding a lamentation for the Jewish race, which actually overtook them immediately after their impiety against our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. For of a truth from that day to this the House of Israel has fallen, and the vision once shewn by God and the rejection have been brought to pass, concerning the falling of their house in Jerusalem, and against their whole state, that it should not be possible for any one to lift them up, who will never more be lifted up. (b) "There is," he says, "therefore no one to lift her up." For since they did not accept the Christ of God when He came, perforce He left them and turned to all the Gentiles, telling the cause of his turning, when He said with tears, as if almost apologizing:

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killeth the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto her, how often - 211 - would I have gathered thy children together, even as a bird gathereth her nestlings under her wings, and ye would not: behold, your house is left unto you desolate."

From Habakkuk.

Christ is named as preserved by His Father and saving His Own Christs.

"Thou wentest forth for the safety of thy people to save thy Christs: Thou hast brought death on the heads of transgressors."

Aquila: "Thou wentest forth for the safety of thy people, for the safety of thy people with thy Christ." As Aquila renders by the singular instead of the plural, saying that the Supreme God has made salvation for the people "with Christ," I have rightly set down the passage, which clearly supports my position. But there would be according to the Septuagint version more persons who are called Christs from Him and for the sake of Whom it is said: "Touch not my Christs, and do my prophets no harm," who believed on Him, and were thought worthy of the holy anointing of regeneration in Christ, and who were able to pay with the holy apostle: "We are become partakers of Christ."

From the Lamentations of Jeremiah.

Christ is named as plotted against by the Jews, and made known to the Gentiles.

"20. The breath of our countenance, the Lord Christ was taken in their destructions, of whom we said, In his shadow we shall live among the Gentiles."

The inspired prophets of God, knowing the future by the Holy Spirit, foretold that they themselves would live, and that their words would work among the Gentiles as the words of living men, but not in Israel. They said again that the Christ (Whom they named) as being He from Whom the prophetic spirit was supplied to them, would be taken in their snares. The snares of whom? Plainly of the Jews who plotted against Him. And notice here that the prophecy says that the Christ will be taken, - 212 - which would not correspond with the second Coming of Christ, which the prophecies predict will be glorious and bring in the Divine Kingdom. Wherefore it seems that (c) the Jews are wrong in taking the sayings about His second Appearance, as if they were about His first Coming, which the sense will in no way allow. Since it is impossible to regard Him as at one and the same time glorious and without glory, honoured and kingly, and then without form or beauty, but dishonoured more than the sons of men; and again, as the Saviour and Redeemer of Israel, while plotted against by them, and led as a sheep to the (d) slaughter, delivered to death by their sins. The prophecies about the Christ should be divided, as our investigation of the facts shews, into two classes: the first which are the more human and gloomy will be agreed to have been fulfilled at His first Coming, the second the more glorious and divine even now await His second Coming for their fulfilment. And a clear proof of the former is the actual progress of the knowledge of God through Him in all nations, which many prophetic voices foretell in various strains, like the one before us, in which it is said: "Of whom we said, In his shadow we will live among the Gentiles."

From the 1st Book of Kings [ 1 Samuel].

Christ is named as exalted by the Lord and Father.

"The Lord has ascended to the heavens and has thundered: he will judge the extremities of the earth, and he gives strength to our kings, and will exalt the horn of his Christ."

The words mean the return of Christ (Who is named) or of God to heaven, and His Teaching heard like thunder by all, and Holy Scripture foretells His future Judgment of all afterwards. And after this it is said that the Lord will give strength to our kings. And these would be the apostles of Christ, of Whom it is written in Ps. lxvii.: "The Lord will give a word to the preachers of the Gospel with much power." Here, also, he mentions Christ by name, humanly known as our Saviour, Whose horn he says shall be exalted, meaning His invisible Power and Kingdom. For it is usual for Scripture to call a kingdom a "horn," - 213 - It is found also in Ps. lxxxviii.: "And in my Name shall his horn be exalted."

From the 1st Book of Kings [1 Samuel].

Christ is named as receiving a faithful House from His Father, that is the Church, and as a Faithful High Priest for All Time leading His Church.

"Behold, the days come when I will destroy thy seed, and the seed of thy father's house. And thou shalt not have an old man in thy house for ever."

The oracle speaks these words to Eli, but adds these others:

"And I will raise up to myself a faithful priest, who shall do all that is in my heart and in my soul; and I will build him a sure house, and he shall dwell before my Christ for ever" (v. 35).

The divine Word after threatening doom and rejection on those who do not worship in the right way, promises that He will raise up another priest of another tribe, who He also says will come before His Christ, or "will walk in the person of my anointed," as Aquila has translated it, or as Symmachus, "will continue before his Christ." And who could this be? Surely every one who is enrolled in holiness in the priesthood of the Christ of God, to Whom the Supreme God promises that He will build the House of His Church, as a wise Architect and Builder, not meaning any house but the Church established in Christ's Name throughout the whole world, wherein every one who is consecrated priest of the Christ of God is said in the spiritual worship to offer things acceptable and well-pleasing to God: the sacrifices of the blood of bulls and goats offered in the old religion of types, being admitted by the prophecy of Isaiah to be hateful to God.

Such are the many instances of the prediction of the Christ by name; but, as in most cases, the Sufferings of Christ are conjoined to His Name, we must return to what was said before about His Divinity, which I have showed previously to be touched on in the 45th Psalm, entitled FOR THE BELOVED, where Scripture, after first describing Him as King, proceeds to say other things about the Divinity of Christ: - 214 -

"Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom: Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated injustice: therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."

For, as I have already shewn, these words clearly imply that the God referred to is one and the same Being, Who loved righteousness and hated iniquity; and that because of this He was anointed by another greater God, His Father, with a better and more excellent unction than that foreshadowed by the types, which is called "the oil of gladness." And what else could He be properly named but Christ, Who is anointed with this oil, not by man but by God Most High? The same Person, therefore, is shewn to be called God, as indeed I have already shewn in the proper places. And we should here again remember Isaiah, who said:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for whose sake he hath anointed me. He has sent me to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and sight to the blind."

And we have already shewn that the priests from among men, who in long distant times were consecrated to the service of God, were anointed with a prepared unguent. But he that is spoken of in the prophecy is said to have been anointed with the Divine Spirit. And this passage in its entirety was referred to Jesus the only true Christ of God, Who one day took the prophecy in the Jewish synagogue, and after reading the selected portion, said that what He had read was fulfilled in Himself. For it is written, that having read it:

"And closing the book, and giving it to the minister, he sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened upon him, 21. And he began to say unto them, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears."

With all this we should again compare the records of Moses, who when he established his own brother as High Priest, according to the pattern that had been shewn to him, agreeably to the oracle which said to him: "Thou - 215 - shalt make all things according to the pattern shewn to thee in the Mount," plainly shews that he had perceived with the eyes of the mind and by the Divine Spirit the great High Priest of the Universe, the true Christ of God, Whose image he represented together with the rest of the material and figurative worship, and honoured the person named with the name of the real Christ.

And this has the support of the inspired apostle, who says when treating of the law of Moses: "Who serve under the example and shadow of heavenly things." And again: "For the law having a shadow of good things to come." And again: "16. Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, 17. which are a shadow of things to come." For if the enactments relating to the difference of foods, and the holy days and the Sabbath, like shadowy things, preserved a copy of other things, that were mystically true, you will say not without reason that the High Priest also represented the symbol of another High Priest, and that he was called Christ, as the pattern of that other, the only real Christ: and so far was he from being the real one, that the real Christ hears from the Supreme God: "Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet." And: "Be thou ruler in the midst of thine enemies." And: "The Lord sware, and will not repent. Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." By which He was revealed clearly as eternal Priest, existing as Offspring and Son of God before the Morning Star and before the whole creation. And the Christ of Moses, like one who has acted the character in a drama for a short time, retires as one reckoned among mortals, and hands on the reality to the only true and real. While the real Christ needing not the Mosaic unction, nor prepared oil, nor earthly material, yet has filled the world with His goodness and His name, establishing the race of Christians, named after Him, among all nations. But Moses' Christ, not that he was ever plainly so called among men, except through the writings of Moses—he, I say, some time long - 216 - after the Exodus from Egypt purified with certain lustrations and sacrifices of blood was anointed with prepared oil, Moses anointing him. But the Christ, archetypal, and real from the beginning, and for infinite ages whole through the whole, and Himself ever like Himself in all ways, and changing not at all, was ever anointed by the Supreme God, with His unbegotten Divinity, both before His sojourn among men, and after it likewise, not by man or by any material substance existing among men.

And as we are examining His Name, the seal of all we have said may be found in the oracle of Solomon the wisest of the wise, where he says in the Song of Songs: "Thy name is as ointment poured forth." Yea, he being supplied with divine wisdom, and thought worthy of more mystic revelations about Christ and His Church, and speaking of Him as Heavenly Bridegroom, and her as Bride, speaks as if to Him, and says, "Thy name, O Bridegroom, is ointment," and not simply ointment, but "ointment poured forth.'' And what name could be more suggestive of. ointment poured forth than the Name of Christ? For there could be no Christ, and no Name of Christ, unless ointment had been poured forth. And in what has gone before I have shewn of what nature the ointment was with which Christ was anointed. So now that we have completed our examination of the Name Christ, let us proceed to consider the Name of Jesus.