CHAPTER 13

From Micah.

Concerning the Descent from Heaven to Men, and concerning the Fall of the Jewish Nation at His Coming, and the Incorporation of All the Other Nations.

[Passage quoted, Micah i. 2-5.] (271)

HERE, too, in this passage the Descent of the Lord coming forth from His place is proclaimed plainly. This must mean (b) the Word of God, Whom I have proved in the previous books to be alone God and Lord after the Supreme and Almighty God. His place you would rightly understand to be the kingdom of heaven, and the glorious throne of His Divinity, of which the prophet sang in praise of God, saying, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever,'' on which the Father bade Him sit as being His Only-begotten Son, saying, "Sit thou on my right hand." For I have already shewn (c) that these words can only be referred to our Saviour, God the Word. So, then, the prophecy before us says that He conies forth from His place, and will descend upon the high-places of the earth. How are we to understand this? Shall we take it literally of the hills and mountains of Israel, which are the subjects of so many prophecies, Jerusalem itself and Mount Sion, in which our Lord and Saviour spent so much time? If so, their destruction and ruin at (d) the descent of Christ would be prophesied. And it is the fact that after the Saviour's coming and the treatment He received all the hills mentioned were besieged, and utterly desolated. But the rulers of the Jewish people as well, and their kingdom that existed previously, their sacrificial system and the seats of their teachers, here called Mountains metaphorically, are said to be shaken by the Descent of the Lord from heaven. And who could deny that this was fulfilled after the time of our Saviour Jesus Christ, when he sees all these things not only shaken, but abolished? And the valleys even now melting are the Jewish synagogues established in all cities instead of Jerusalem and Mount (272) Sion, which are full of lamentation and wailing, and melting as wax at the fire with grief and extreme sorrow for the - 14 - desolation of their homes and their long and lasting slavery. And the coming of the Word of God regarded in another light took place not in chasms and valleys, nor in lowly and earth-bound thoughts, but in exalted souls. And so the Lord Himself is said in a wider metaphor to be about to descend on the high-places of earth. Then the mountains shaken under Him will be those very heights whither He "was led by the spirit to be tempted of the devil," "when the devil leadeth him to an exceeding high mountain, and he was with the wild beasts." Or the mountains again might represent in metaphor the idolatry practised formerly on mountains, and the principalities and powers working there invisibly, which our Saviour's teaching was to shake and overthrow in no small degree. For His inspired word and His miraculous and wondrous strength have insensibly destroyed the powers which from far ages have attacked mankind. In like manner also the hills melting like wax from the presence of the fire would be the infernal and earth-bound daemons, against whom He sent forth fire to consume their lust, saying, "I came to cast fire upon the earth, and what will I if it be already kindled?" Burned by which fire, and unable to bear the torture of its unseen flame, they withdrew from the bodies of men, and acknowledged that which controlled them and drove them out, crying, "Let us alone, what have we to do with thee, Son of God? Hast thou come to torment us before the time? We know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God." And these He chiefly chastised, and destroyed their princes, because not content with the corruption of the other nations, whereby they had cast them all into the errors of polytheism, they had also plotted against God's ancient people, those of the Circumcision, and had endeavoured to seduce even them from their God to all manner of impiety. And this was the chief reason why the Lord descended from heaven. Wherefore He says next, "For the iniquity of Jacob is all this done, and for the transgression of my people Israel." And then He gives an additional reason for the Descent of the Word, recounting the impiety of the Jews, and the destruction falling upon them, and heralding the calling of all nations throughout the world. For these things' sake the Word of God came down from heaven to earth. Hear this passage: - 15 - 

"5. For the impiety of the House of Jacob is all this done, and for the transgression of the House of Israel. What is the impiety of the House of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the sin of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem? 6. And I will make Samaria a lodge of the field, and a plantation of a vineyard, and I will draw down to chaos the stones thereof, and will hide the foundations thereof." 

And He adds:

"12. Evil hath descended from the Lord on the gates of Jerusalem, the noise of chariots and horsemen." 

And again:

"15. O glory of the daughter of Jerusalem, shave and cut off thy choice children. Enlarge thy widowhood, as an eagle, when thy captives are led from thee." 

And moreover:

"Sion shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall be as a granary, and the mount of the house as a grove of the wood."

Sion and Jerusalem and the so-called "mount of the house" are what were represented before in, "And the mountains shall be shaken from beneath him, and the valleys shall be melted as wax before the fire for the iniquity of Jacob." For the mountains and the dwellers thereon were besieged for the iniquity they had wrought against Him soon and not long after Mount Sion was burned and left utterly desolate, and the Mount of the House of God became as a grove of the wood.

If our own observation has any value, we have seen in our own time Sion once so famous ploughed with yokes of oxen by the Romans and utterly devastated, and Jerusalem, as the oracle says, deserted like a lodge. And this has come to pass precisely because of their impieties, for the - 16 - 

sake of which the Heavenly Word has come forth from His own place.

And I have already said that the Word of God came down from heaven and descended on the high places of the earth for other reasons, both that the mountains which of old lifted themselves up and exalted themselves against the knowledge of God might be shaken beneath Him (that is to say the opposing powers, which before His coming enslaved the Hebrew race as well as the rest of mankind in the practice of impiety and idolatry), and also that the evil daemons called valleys (through their living in gloomy chasms, and in the recesses of the body) might melt as wax before the fire and flee away from men by the power of the divine Word. And there was another additional reason by no means fortuitous for the descent of the Lord from heaven, which this prophecy recognizes, namely that all the nations on earth, the daemons being banished and the ruling spirits shaken, recovering from the cruel and ceaseless tyranny which had long afflicted them, might attain the knowledge of Almighty God. And the voice of the same prophet proclaims the same things further on as follows, uniting them in the same manner under one head:

"And in the last days the Mount of the Lord shall be glorious, prepared upon the tops of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and peoples shall haste unto it, and many nations shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the Mount of the Lord, and the house of the God of Jacob, and they will shew us his way, and we will walk in his paths. For out of Sion shall come forth a law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and he will judge in the midst of the nations." 

One can learn at one's leisure in what sense such prophecies of the Call of the Gentiles are to be understood, and that they were only fulfilled after the coining of our Saviour. And the opening of the prophecy is in full agreement with I the truth that the Lord descended not only for the salvation of the Jewish race, but for that of all nations, in proclaiming to all peoples and all the inhabitants of the earth, saying, "Hear all peoples, and let the earth attend, and all that are - 17 -  therein." And it darkly foretold the witness of the Passion of our Lord, adding, "And the Lord our God shall be for a witness."

And after this the same prophet, having prepared the way by telling of what related to the fact of the Descent of God the Word from heaven, and foretold what should be the causes of His coining, proceeds to relate His birth among men, and to name the place where He should be born, in the following words:

"2. And thou, Bethlehem, house of Ephratha, art the least to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall come forth for me a leader, to be for a ruler in Israel, and his goings-forth are from the beginning from the days of eternity."

Note with care how he says that the goings forth of Him that shall appear at Bethlehem are from above and from eternity, by which he shews the pre-existence and essential origin of Him that is to come forth from Bethlehem. Now if any person can apply the oracle to any one but Jesus, let him shew who it is; but if it is impossible to find any one but our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the only Person after the date of this prophecy Who came forth thence and attained to fame, what should hinder us from acknowledging the truth of the prophecy, which directs its prediction on Him only? For He alone of all men is known to have come forth from the before-named Bethlehem after the date of the prophecy, putting on a human shape, and what had been foretold was fulfilled at His coming. For at once and not after a long time the woes that were foretold fell on the Jewish nation, and blessings in accordance with the prophecies on the nations as well, and He Himself, our Lord and Saviour Who came from Bethlehem, was shewn to be the ruler of the spiritual Israel, such being the name of all people of vision and piety. Note too that it is said that the goings-forth of His Divine Pre-existence are from the beginning and from the days of eternity, which would not agree with mere humanity.

Then the word of the prophet, a little further on, suggests again the curtailing and abolition of the ancient ritual of the Law, speaking in the person of the people: - 18 - 

"6. Wherewithal shall I reach the Lord, and lay hold of my God most high?. Shall I reach him by whole burnt-offerings, by calves a year old? 7. Should I give my firstborn for my ungodliness, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" 

And he makes this answer to them in the person of God:

"8. Has it not been told thee, O man, what is good? And what does the Lord require of thee, but to do judgment, and to love mercy, and to be ready to walk after thy God? "

You have then in this prophecy of the Descent of the Lord among men from heaven, many other things foretold at the same time, the rejection of the Jews, the judgment on their impiety, the destruction of their royal city, the abolition of the worship practised by them of old according to the Law of Moses; and on the other hand, promises of good for the nations, the knowledge of God, a new ideal of holiness, a new law and teaching coming forth from the land of the Jews. I leave you to see, how wonderful a fulfilment, how wonderful a completion, the prophecy has reached after the Coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ.