118. Jesus Christ--His Divinity

Jesus Christ--His Divinity

Hag 2:6-9. For thus saith the Lord of hosts. Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: And I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of Hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts; And in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts. The great Lord of Nature demonstrates his existence and divine perfection, in the original formation, and in the constant preservation of all things. “He spake and it was done, he commanded and it stood fast.” He upholdeth all “by the word of his power.” The continual support of the universe has accordingly, with the utmost propriety, been represented as creation every instant repeated. In a system which is all life and motion, power almighty, and attention unintermitting, must ever be exerted to maintain life, to carry on motion, to preserve harmony. Every being is subjected to the peculiar law of its own nature; and the great whole is governed by general laws. Unity, simplicity, multitude, variety, strike the eye of every attentive beholder; every individual presents a little world apart, and the vast combination of individuals forms but one world, animated by one vital principle. But Jehovah makes himself known to his intelligent creatures not only in the stated order and harmony of his works, but in the occasional and temporary interruption of that order, and in deviation from that harmony. The powers of earth and heaven are shaken; the sun is turned into darkness and the stars withdraw their light; the barrier which restrained the ocean is removed, the windows of heaven are opened, and the earth is overflowed. The rain that falls on Sodom becomes a fiery tide; the flame of Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace is rendered harmless air; the hungry lion licks the prophet’s feet. The glaring eccentric comet, the wandering planet, and the fixed star, all, all refer us to one original, to one moving, restraining, directing, supporting cause.

Neither, however, the regular observance, nor the occasional suspension of the laws of nature are mere wanton displays of power, to amuse the curious, to alarm the fearful, or to confound the proud. Every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, and every act of omnipotence have an important meaning and design. The end at which the Ruler of the world still aims, is the manifestation of his own glory in promoting the wisdom and happiness of his creatures. The prophet, in the passage of the sacred volume which has now been read, is evidently referring to some signal display of the divine glory. We behold universal commotion raised and settled by the same power; heaven and earth, the sea and the dry land, and all the kindreds of the nations shaken together. Universal attention is excited, universal expectation is raised, and that expectation is completely gratified, by the appearance of “the desire of all nations;” by the restoration of peace to a troubled world; by a luster bestowed on the second temple which should eclipse the glory of the first. Now, the expression, “the glory of this latter house shall be greater than the former, saith the Lord of hosts,” enables us to fix the period, and to discover the person here described. Haggai lived and prophesied after the Babylonish captivity, and the immediate object of his prophecy was to urge his restored countrymen to industry and perseverance, in the work of rebuilding the temple of the Lord. And as the most powerful and encouraging of all motives ire is commissioned to assure them, that the period fast approached when the fabric which they were their rearing should be invested with much greater honor, than that of Solomon in all his glory ever possessed. But if this were meant of temporal splendor merely, the fact contradicts it; for from Ezra we learn, that in this respect, the former temple was far superior to the latter; “many of the priests and levites, and chief of the fathers who were ancient men that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice;” so mortifying was the comparison. Our prophet himself holds the same language, Hag 2:3. “Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory! and how do you see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?” We must look therefore for a different kind of glory, to explain and confirm the prediction: and it is impossible to be at a loss about an interpretation, when we consider wherein the real glory of the second temple consisted. Not in being filled, and overlaid with silver and gold, for these are spoken of as comparatively vile and contemptible. “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts,” a claim exactly in the same spirit with that made in Psalms 50. “Hear, O my people, and I will speak: O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices, or thy burnt-offerings, to have been continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy folds: for every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains; and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the Most High.” “Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt-offering.” But when “sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire, when burnt-offering and sin-offering were not required, then said I, Lo, I come, I delight to do thy will, O my God.” This, Christians, like the star which conducted the wise men of the East, leads us directly to the Savior of the world. Would you behold the superior glory of the latter temple, look to Simeon visiting it, looking and longing for the consolation of Israel: behold him with the babe in his arms, exulting with joy unspeakable and full of glory, in having seen the salvation of God. Look to Jesus at the age of twelve years “sitting in the temple in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions,” displaying at that tender age, a wisdom, and dignity far superior to that of Solomon in his zenith. Look to that same Jesus, in his zeal for the honor of the sacred edifice, purging it of those impurities which a worldly spirit had introduced into it. Listen to the divine eloquence which there flowed from the lips of him who spake as never man spake. Hear him predicting its destruction, and establishing the truth of his own mission in denouncing against it, and devoting it to total and irrecoverable ruin. Behold him on those ruins, rearing an everlasting and a spiritual building, on a rock against which the gates of hell shall never prevail; and in all this, behold as in a glass the glory here spoken of, the advent of “the desire of all nations,” the “star of Jacob” arisen, Shiloh come, to whom the gathering of the nations shall be, “the Prince of Peace,” by whom peace is proclaimed, and through whom peace is given to “him that is afar off and him that is nigh.” In order still further to justify the application of this prophecy to the person and character of the Redeemer, we may inquire into the import of the other expressions here employed, to describe the appearances of nature and providence, which signalized the era of his manifestation in the flesh. “Yet once, it is a little while.” The reign of prophecy was hastening to a conclusion. Haggai was one of the last on whom that spirit rested; with Malachi, who lived probably somewhat later, it entirely ceased; and a dark period of five hundred years without a vision, intervened, till it was revived in one who came in the spirit and power of Elias, the forerunner of the Messiah, “the voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God,” Isa 40:3, and it shone in all its luster in the Messiah himself, “the great prophet that should come into the world.” By him it is here intimated that God should speak “once” for all; that he should be the full and final declarer of the will of God to mankind; “yet once,” but no more.

“It is a little while.” With God, what is purposed, is begun to be executed, his agents are already at work, time is lost with him who sees the end from the beginning. “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness;” “beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” The interval between the prediction and the accomplishment, though a period of five centuries, is, in the sight of God, “a little while;” and five centuries, when they are past, are but “a little while” in the eyes of man also. But to what circumstances attending the coming of our Savior refers the prophet, when he represents the great God as “shaking the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land, and all nations?” It is well known that the sacred writers frequently employ, by a bold figure, the appearances of the natural world to represent and explain moral objects. In the case before us, it will be found that both the literal and figurative sense of the words are strictly applicable to the subject. Everyone, who is at all acquainted with the history of mankind, knows that the whole course of things has been a constant and successive concussion and convulsion, a shaking of the nations, struggle for dominion, the progress of empire from east to west; and an aspect of the heavenly bodies and influence, analogous to the state of the moral world. The observer of nature endeavors to trace all these up to their native causes in the great system of the universe; the moralist: looks for them in the nature and constitution of man, and the politician, in the combinations and exertions of passion and interest. The Believer, the Christian, refers all to God, sees him in the cloud, in the sky; hears him in the wind, in the thunder, in the songster of the grove and he sees the swelling tide of nature and providence laboring with one object of peculiar importance; all things are shaken and composed in subordination to the preparation of the gospel of peace.

Let me compress what I mean to say within a narrow compass; and I shall do it nearly in the words of an elegant preacher whom I have oftener than once had the honor to quote in this place. The eastern part of the world was, in the wisdom of Providence, first peopled, great and extensive empires were first formed there, and there learning and the arts were first brought to perfection. But while science and empire flourished in the east, a power was rising by degrees in the western world, which was one clay to surpass all that had gone before it. Unknown to the proud empires of the eastern hemisphere, which vainly flattered themselves that they divided the world amongst them, this power was then silently advancing from conquest to conquest, and the Roman eagle was by degrees strengthening her wing, and preparing to take her flight round half the globe. The succession of those great monarchies, those shakings of the heavens and the earth, this shaking of all nations, led gradually and imperceptibly to that happy conjuncture, that fulness of time, that maturity of divine counsel which suited the introduction of Christianity. They arose one after another, they enlarged one upon another, till at length the genius of Rome, under the permission of Heaven, triumphed over and swallowed up all others, and expanded, opened, united, consolidated, that wide-extended, well-informed, civilized empire, through which the gospel of Christ was destined to make a progress so rapid and so successful. To favor this great event, to procure attention to the Author and finisher of our faith, and to render the first appearance of our holy religion at once more august and more secure, the struggles of ambition which had so long shaken the world, those restless contests for superiority, subsided at last, suddenly and unexpectedly, into universal peace. That stormy ocean, which had been for ages and generations in continual agitation, now all at once sank into a surprising calm; the bloody portal of Janus, which had so long emitted unrelenting destruction to mankind, was shut, and the globe was instantly overspread with tranquillity, relieved from the din of arms, from the confused noise of the warrior, and the horrid sight of garments rolled in blood, in order to receive the Prince of Peace. The shaking of the nations, as paving the way for the desire of all nations, is striking to the contemplative mind in another point of view. Philosophy rode triumphant, every question relating to physics, morals, politics, science, religion, was freely canvassed; and the noise of the schools in many instances drowned that of the ensanguined plain. The introduction of Christianity was preceded by a remarkable diffusion of knowledge, and the radiance of science ushered in the gospel day, as Aurora announces the approach of the sun, and prepares the world for it. Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome, poured from their separate urns, those distinct rills of science, which meeting in one great channel, became a mighty flood, and overspread the vast Roman empire. And thus was revelation enabled to give a most illustrious proof of its coming down from above, by diffusing over the world, all at once, a light superior to all collected human wisdom in its brightest glory. And need we ask who it was that thus shook and settled the sea and the dry land, who regulated the vast engine, who conducted all these great events, and brought them to one issue, concurrence, and conclusion? At the same period of time the promised Messiah came; the greatest empire that ever existed was at the height of its glory: learning flourished beyond what it had done in any former age: and the world was blessed with universal peace. A coincidence of facts, everyone of which is in itself so extraordinary that it cannot be paralleled by any other times, clearly points out the hand of that supreme, overruling Power, who from eternity beheld the great plan of hid providence through its whole extent, who alone “can declare the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things which are not yet done,” saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.” To put this beyond all doubt, let it be observed, that these events took their rise in remotest ages, and were prepared in times and countries far distant from and unknown to each other. Empire which sprang up amidst the seven hills of Rome; science nursed in the academic; groves of Greece; and religion from the obscure vales of Judea, all met at one grand crisis. To one another unknown, they must have been conducted by the hand of Providence. But meet they did, and peace from heaven crowned them with her olive. And thus were the nations shaken to prepare the way of the Lord; thus “the valleys were exalted, and the mountains and hills laid low, the crooked made straight, and the rough places plain,” and the high and aspiring thoughts of men were brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. But the heavens and the earth were literally shaken, at the coming of “the desire of all nations.” Witness that new created star which conducted the eastern Magi to the place where the Savior was born; witness the descent of Gabriel and a multitude of the heavenly host, to announce his arrival; and witness the other appearances of celestial spirits to minister to the Lord of Glory in his temptation and agony, at his resurrection and ascension into heaven; witness the descent of Moses and Elias to the mount of transfiguration; witness too the eclipse of the sun beyond the course of nature, which marked the hour of his death, the quaking of the earth, the rending of the rocks, the rising of the dead: witness the voice from heaven which, like thunder, oftener than once, shook the echoing air, while God himself declared his well beloved Son, and demanded attention for him. All these confirm the testimony of the prophet, they point it to the Lord Jesus, and inspire joy unspeakable and full of glory, on discovering the perfect coincidence between prediction and event. To this auspicious, this all important era we are now brought; and the next Lecture, with the divine permission, will detail the remarkable circumstances which immediately preceded, or which accompanied the birth of Christ. And was all this mighty preparation made to introduce a mere man of like passions with ourselves? Were the heavens from above and the earth beneath stirred to meet him at his coming? Did flaming ministers descend singly and in bands, did departed prophets revisit the earth and the dead bodies of saints arise, to do homage to a creature, their equal, their fellow? It is not to be believed. But surely this is the Son of God; and to receive him, coming for our salvation, what solemnity of preparation was too great, what homage of angels and men too submissive, what testimony of created Nature too ample? “Hosanna to the son of David, blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.” Is his name and description “the desire of all nations?” how fitly applied! Is light desirable to the benighted, bewildered traveller in a land of snares and of the shadow of death? Is pardon desirable to a wretch condemned? Is the cooling stream desirable to the parched pilgrim, and bread to the hungry perishing wretch? Is the friendly haven desirable to the tempest-tossed mariner, and liberty to the languishing captive? What then to an ignorant, guilty, perishing world, must that wonderful man be whom Providence has raised up to be “a hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place; as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” But what if when he shall appear, desirable as he is, a blind world shall see “no form or comeliness in him, no beauty why he should be desired?” Afflicting thought! “He was despised and rejected of men!” “He came to his own and his own received him not.” They “denied the holy one, and the just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto them.” The cry was, “away with him, crucify him;” his “blood be upon us and upon our children!” O Lord, remove the film from the eyes of those prejudiced Jews; dispose them to receive “The Prince of Peace,” let him be all their salvation and all their desire. Lord, remove the film from my eyes that I may see in him, whom God the Father hath sent and sealed, one “fairer than the children of men; into whose lips grace is poured:” that though he may be “unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness, He may he unto us who believe, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Amen.