02.050. Section III

SECTION III zacharias

(Luke 1:1-80)

It is a mark of the refined consistency of the theocratic spirit, that the visibly impending event of the incarnation of God should first have been announced within the sanctuary of the Jewish temple; that the Jewish priesthood, in the person of one of its holiest members, and during the performance of one of its sacred functions, should first have been admitted to the knowledge of this great and germinating mystery. After the long silence of the prophetic Spirit, an aged priest was destined to be the first who was again to proclaim the prophetic Gospel of the coming Messiah, and a priest’s son was appointed to close the long series of Messianic prophets, as the immediate forerunner of Christ. The temple seems, indeed, at this time to have been almost entirely occupied by a dead and hypocritical priesthood; but the Spirit of revelation knew how to find the healthy member of the diseased body. The divine communication which Zacharias received in the temple was indeed like a whisper from the pure Spirit of revelation, shunning the false audience of a priesthood plunged in a debased fanaticism. He was, moreover, obliged to carry it in silence, like a secret treasure, to the solitude of his home, to secure it from the profanation of the other priests of his order. The theocracy could not but honour the temple, the hour of prayer, and the true priest, now that it was about to form the eternal and true sanctuary in presence of the symbolical One. Even the angel of the divine presence went thither and showed Himself to the priest, when He was about to put on human nature.

We have already spoken of the state of mind which made Zacharias susceptible of the divine revelation. In the melancholy resignation of painfully-felt childlessness, he had left his home,¹ with his fellow-priests of the course of Abia, to perform the services of the temple during his week of office.² By the casting of the lot, the office of burning incense fell to him. It would be impossible for Zacharias to offer this great sign of the united prayer of Israel, without bringing before the Lord the concerns of His people. Hence his soul had undoubtedly attained to a fervency of theocratic prayer for Israel at the conclusion of this symbolical act, and he was about to leave the temple, when the wondrous power of Jehovah’s covenant-grace was manifested to him in the appearance of the angel Gabriel.³

Undoubtedly the ideal Zion and his domestic ideal had been a thousand times already blended in his contemplations. Hence the promise that it should be fulfilled was now blended with the promise of a son in the message of the angel. The angel stood at the right hand of the altar of incense, a good omen for Zacharias. But he was terrified; the revelation found corners as yet unenlightened, and remains of unmelted obstinacy and unextinguished bitterness in his soul, although in the depths of his heart there was a living agreement therewith, his life was radically conformed to it. Hence his individuality stands out. His wife Elisabeth was to bear him a son. He was to be called John, the gracious gift of God;¹ he was to be a messenger of God’s favour to his father, and a cause of joy to many. His life was to be great; and he was to be sanctified from his mother’s womb through the holy dispositions of his parents, sanctified by the Holy Ghost. Hence his development would proceed without great deviations in the direct line of the unfolding of the divine light in his life. It was, however, to be protected by the ordinance of the Nazarite;² he was to pass his life in the abstinence of one vowed to God. This promised one was to turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He was to go before the face of the Lord, according to the promise of Malachi (3:1), in the spirit and power of Elias, to make ready a prepared people. But in what manner? By turning, on one hand, the hearts of the fathers (of the better Pharisees perhaps) to the children, thus making a way for the divine stranger by opposing the traditions of the fathers; on the other hand, by turning the unbelieving (the better among the Sadducees) to the true wisdom of the just. But how could Zacharias mistrust and contradict the word of the angel, whose message thus met his heart’s deepest aspirations? At such moments, when the bestowal of a long-wished-for blessing, whose want he thought he had long ago got over, is announced to one who is resigned to God’s dealings, and is declared to be now nigh at hand, all the sensibility of his soul is expressed in a sudden reaction. The peace of resignation has become so dear to him. He has felt himself so secure, so free, and proud in that deprivation which he has accepted from the hand of God as his lot in life, and he is unwilling to be thrown back into his former conflicts. Hence it generally happens that there is a remnant of bitter reminiscence still unexterminated in the depths of the heart. He had once felt himself injured by Providence, but he was constrained by his submission to God to oppose, to condemn, to deaden such a feeling. But now, amidst the surprising announcement, the smothered flame of his displeasure bursts forth once more. His various emotions produce a strong passion, a convulsive effort of mind, which seems to repel the promise. Thus did Abraham make objections, when Isaac was promised him; and Moses seemed no longer gladly willing, when he was at length commissioned to realize his youth’s highest ideal, and to redeem Israel. Zacharias too manifests a similar emotion.

He had indeed reason to ask, How shall this be? for ‘I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.’ But instead of an explanation, he requests a fresh sign. ‘Whereby shall I know this?’-the vision seeming to him an insufficient sign.¹ The same divine operation now makes a second and more powerful impression upon him. His doubts are overpowered by the majesty of the divine vision, which appeared to him in a still clearer light. He now recognizes in this appearance the angel Gabriel, who stands before God (therefore the angel of the divine presence); and the reproof which thrills through his soul, for his mistrust of such a revelation, affects his whole being. But it is asked, how could the angel inflict upon him the affliction of dumbness as a punishment to his unbelief? Was not this such a manifestation of passion, it is asked, as should not be supposed to exist in an angelic breast? And was not such treatment unjust, when compared with that which Mary and which Abraham experienced on similar occasions?²

We must first remember that here, as everywhere in the province of revelation, we have to do with facts, whose intention and exact significance is to be known by their results. In the present case, the fact was as follows: Zacharias became dumb as the result of the shock which the vision produced in his mind, and did not regain his speech till John had been born and received his name. He himself recognized in this fact the punishment of his sin; since, without the co-operation of his conscience, he would not have understood the word of the angel, which announced this chastisement.

There was also a difference between the expressions of Mary and Abraham and those of Zacharias. He found the sign, which was to be to him the pledge that the wondrous promise would be fulfilled, too small. But even if he had expressed himself exactly as Abraham did, the assertion of critics, that he ought then to experience treatment in no wise differing from that which Abraham experienced, must be attributed to an external and most formal casuistry. It is an old rule, that two persons may perform externally the same action, without that action having precisely the same moral import.³ Can the critic prove that the moral value of the question of Zacharias cannot possibly be different from that of Abraham? Might not one and the same question be, in the mouth of Abraham, an expression of most profound submission; in that of Mary, of purest maidenly solicitude; and in that of Zacharias, a question not free from the reviving elements of unbelief? We cannot help it if the casuist is insensible to the importance of the actual state of the inner life in producing this variety, but we need not long occupy ourselves with his ‘difficulty.’¹

It can prove nothing against the historic reality of the late birth here announced, that similar late births were matters of promise in the Old Testament, as those of Isaac and Samuel.² This circumstance, on the contrary, points to a peculiarity in the divine government which is wont to call not merely the late-born, but frequently also the lost, the exposed, the greatly endangered, or the overlooked among children, and to form them into the chosen vessels of His providence. These form an extensive category, in which may be reckoned, according to legendary history, Romulus and Remus; according to the Old Testament, Isaac, Joseph, and Moses; and according to the New, John the Baptist and Christ.

Dumb, and speaking by signs, solemnized, yet filled with sacred joy, Zacharias came forth from the temple to bless the waiting people; dumb, but happy in the certainty of the promised blessing, he returned, after having fulfilled his ministry, to his home. His wife Elisabeth conceived. She lived for five months in strict retirement, a hermitess, already entering into the destination of her son by her own conduct; her soul reposing in the joyful feeling that the Lord had looked upon her, and taken away her reproach among women. It was amidst the noblest of Israelite aspirations that John was conceived, and that the day of his birth approached.