04.09. SHADOWS OF THE CROSS
SHADOWS OF THE CROSS THE cross of Calvary throws its shadow back through the long ages. We may trace it in the Garden of Eden. See that innocent victim whose skin formed a covering for the nakedness of our first parents. It was one skin - for the word is in the singular - with which our first parents were arrayed by the hand of God in substitution for the fig- leaf covering which they had themselves devised. We see in that victim the first shadow of the cross. The firstling of the flock, which was Abel’s offering, forms another part of the shadow of Calvary’s cross. In the altars erected by the patriarchs that shadow is lengthened out. The altar erected by Abraham on Mount Moriah, on one of the mountains which God told him of, is a marvellous shadow of the cross of Calvary. If we wanted a proof of the inspiration of Scripture, that twenty-second chapter of Genesis would furnish it. We see there an unmistakable shadow of the cross, clear in all its outlines, sharply cut, accurate, and true in every detail. Let us connect the altar in the centre of Solomon’s court with that Abraham erected on the spot pointed out by the finger of God on Mount Moriah. It may be that Solomon’s altar stood on the very self-same spot. At the present day, on the crest of that mountain, there is a remarkable projection of limestone, a few feet above the surface of the surrounding platform of marble, on which the Dome of the Rock now stands. That irregular limestone projection is regarded by the Mohammedans to the present day as the sacred site where their father Abraham built an altar on which to offer up his son Isaac. The Dome of the Rock, or Mosque of Omar, is, so to speak, a monument erected over that sacred spot.
What a wondrous shadow of the cross of Calvary is given in this twenty-second chapter of Genesis, which describes the sacrifice that Abraham offered. We are told that God did tempt Abraham - that is, put him to the test. Satan’s temptations act upon the evil of our nature to bring out evil. God’s testings are rather the actings of His own grace to bring out that grace to the full. God tried Abraham in the most severe manner. He put the gold into a crucible at white heat. He tried him at the tenderest point. How it reminds us of that wondrous fact: “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
Abraham takes the wood and lays it on his son Isaac. This brings Isaiah 53:1-12 to our remembrance - another deep shadow of the cross - where we learn that “Jehovah laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
Abraham and Isaac, we read, “went both of them together.” How instructive and full of deep meaning is this expression. It was the grace of God that caused Him to give His only begotten Son; it was the grace of the Son that led Him to give Himself up to the fulfillment of the Father’s will - “they went both of them together.” Isaac said, “Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” How suggestive was Abraham’s reply: “My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering.” Did Isaac understand it? Perhaps he did. If there was in Abraham the spirit of the Father’s surrender of the Son, there was also in Isaac the spirit of the Son’s surrender to the Father’s will. “So they went both of them together.”
Let us transfer the question of Isaac to the altar of burnt offering. In the centre of Israel’s camp in the wilderness was the altar of burnt offering - five cubits square, and three cubits high. At the dedication of the tabernacle the fire of God descended and consumed upon the altar the sacrifice. Henceforth, the command of God was that the fire should ever be burning upon the altar; it should never go out. So also, when Solomon’s temple was dedicated, the fire again descended and consumed the sacrifice upon the altar, that the same ordinance might be observed - “The fire shall ever be burning on My altar”; “It shall never go out”; “It shall never be put out.”
What is the fire that came from God, which consumed the victim on the altar, and caused it to ascend as a sweet savour, or savour of rest - that fire which, when the rebels presented strange fire, came forth and consumed them. What is that fire the emblem of? “Behold the fire.” It was in the very centre of Israel’s encampment; there was the smoke ever ascending, the fire ever burning. “Our God is a consuming fire.” The fire is the emblem of God’s righteousness and holiness. God never ceases to be the righteous and holy God, of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and who cannot look upon sin. Never for one single moment or twinkling of an eye, in time, or for one single moment throughout eternity, will that fire cease to burn. It shall never go out. In the glory above God will be ever righteous and holy; and in the bottomless pit, the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, His righteousness shall forever be manifested. That fire shall never cease to burn. There the fire is not quenched, and there the worm dieth not. “For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the King it is prepared; He hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of Jehovah, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it” (Isaiah 30:33). When the lake of fire is open to receive the lost, all the sin of a guilty world will be cast into it, as fuel for the everlasting burnings. It shall never go out. “Behold the fire.”
“Behold the wood.” It was the occupation of the Gibeonites to be hewers of wood for God’s altar. Daily the priests were to lay the wood in order upon the fire. What is the wood? The wood is the emblem of sin.
“Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee; our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance.” The wood was each day set in order upon the fire. God is righteous; behold the fire. Man is a sinner: behold the wood. Look round upon the world. Look at London: behold the wood. Oh! what heavy faggots will be carried down to the everlasting burnings. Men’s sins will follow them; every sin that man hath committed, and that goes unconfessed and unpardoned, unwashed in Emmanuel’s blood, will be a faggot for the burning.
“Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Behold the holiness and righteousness of God, for “our God is a consuming fire.” Behold the wood. From all parts of the world the echo comes back: Behold the wood! From heathendom, Popedom, Christendom, comes the echo: Behold the wood!
“But where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Let us send up the challenge to the heavens above: “Where is the Lamb?” Angels, where is the Lamb? Gabriel, will you step forward? The echo comes back: “Where is the Lamb?” Where? Where? Ah beloved friends, that was the cry for ages and ages, till one day John the Baptist pointed with his finger to a man walking along, and said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” “My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for the burnt offering.” That is He.
See “the carpenter’s son,” despised and rejected of men, led as a lamb to the slaughter, and dumb before its shearers - behold the Lamb that God has provided.
“None other can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him” (Psalms 49:7). God could see none amongst the ranks of the angels mighty enough, and worthy enough, to be laid on His altar. But God has Himself provided a Lamb. He looked round upon a sinful world; God is holy: “behold the fire.” “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men”: “behold the wood.” Oh, blessed thought: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!” The fire ever burning, the wood ever consuming, the sweet savour of the Lamb ever ascending. God always holy, man ever a transgressor, but the sweet savour of the Lamb of God ever ascending from God’s altar.
Look down now to the cave below, and see in Tophet the fire and the wood. People want to know what the brimstone is (Isaiah 30:33); it is the wrath of God. The breath of Jehovah, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it, and adds intensity to the flames. Look down and say: Behold the fire, and behold the wood, but where is the Lamb? And these caves of darkness utter back the sorrowful echo: Where? Where! WHERE? Behold the fire; it shall never go out. Behold the wood; but no lamb for a burnt offering there.
Look up to the regions of light above, and say, Behold the fire. Yes, He Who sits upon the throne of the universe - God the Judge of all - is a God of infinite justice, infinite holiness, infinite purity: behold the fire. Where is the Lamb? Behold, in the midst of the throne, “a Lamb as it had been slain.” But where is the wood? From those regions of light, and from the midst of the throne, there comes the echo back:
Where? Where? WHERE? There is no evil there, no wood there, no sin there. The lamb on the altar was God’s centre for Israel’s camp; the lamb on the altar was God’s centre of Israel’s kingdom under Solomon; the lamb on the altar - not the evening lamb, but the morning lamb - will be God’s centre for Israel and for the earth in the millennial period. But God’s centre for heaven, for the universe, and for eternity, will be “the Lamb as it had been slain,” in the midst of the throne of God - no longer led as a lamb to the slaughter, but reigning for ever and ever.