Zechariah 13

It is true of us all as sinners, we have pierced Christ; inasmuch as our sins were the cause of His death, for He was wounded for our transgressions, and they are the grief of His soul; He is broken with the defiant heart of sinners, who therefore are said to crucify Him afresh and put Him to open shame. Those that truly repent of sin look upon Christ as one whom they have pierced, who was pierced for their sins, and is pierced by them; and this engages them to look unto Him as those that are deeply concerned for Him. This is the effect of their looking to Christ, it makes them mourn. This was particularly fulfilled in those to whom Peter preached Christ crucified; when they heard it, they who had had a hand in piercing Him were pricked to the heart and cried out, “What shall we do?” It is fulfilled in all those who sorrow for sin after a godly sort: they look to Christ and mourn for Him, not so much for His sufferings as for their own sins that procured them. The genuine sorrows of a penitent soul flow from the believing sight of a pierced Saviour. Looking by faith upon the cross of Christ will set us a mourning for sin after a godly sort. H.

Repentance is the recognition by the fallen self of its true self in Christ. As the touched and troubled heart listens to the story of that beauteous life; as there rises before the spirit’s quickened eye the vision of a Perfect Innocence in human form, of a sublime purity with which no alloy of sternness mingles, a mental and moral elevation in which no trace of self-consciousness can be detected, a piety rapt as an angel’s combined with the unassuming simplicity of a child, as we ponder the narrative of a life of holiest fellowship with God, maintained amid incessant toil and intercourse with men, a life of persistent self-sacrifice, undimmed by one thought of personal ease or one act of selfish indulgence—a life in which love, tender as a mother’s, grew more fervent amid ingratitude, waxed stronger and deeper amid insults and wrongs received at the very hands of its objects; in one word, as inspiration summons up to the awakened mind the spectacle of a perfectly holy human life, the deepest instincts of our nature are stirred to discern herein its own lost ideal. Caird.

If there is one prediction which might drive the expectant sinner to a pillow of thorns and a couch of agony, it is, “They shall look on Him whom they have pierced.” As a God they cannot escape His searching gaze, or shake His firm justice, or overthrow His invincible power, or contradict His everlasting love. As a man, they shall see that He condemns them with all the stirrings of a brother’s heart. As a Saviour, “they shall look on Him whom they have pierced,” and it will be the bitterness of that wrath under which they sink, that it is the wrath of a bleeding Lamb. W. B. Homer.

11. The mourning of Hadadrimmon. Most probably the general mourning for the death of the good King Josiah, who was slain in the valley of Megiddo (2 K. 23: 29; 2 Chron. 35: 22-24). Hadadrimmon is said by Jerome to have been a place near Jezreel. The mourning for Josiah became a proverb for a public and solemn lamentation. Such a national humiliation, it is here said, shall the Jews observe for having crucified the Messiah. Blayney.

12. This is so much a personal matter, lying between each individual soul and his Saviour, that each one is drawn to weep and mourn apart and alone. Every instinct leads the mourner to seek solitude and to pour out his whole heart there under no other eye than God’s. The mode of presenting this thought is by Jewish terms and historic allusions. The house of David and the house of Nathan, one of his sons, in the royal line; then the house of Levi and the house of Shimei, one of his sons, representing the priesthood; these stand for the whole people, and show that they all mourn apart, and their wives apart. The first verse of the next chapter belongs with this, showing that such penitence and prayer bring pardon full and free.

Chap. 13. The first verse belongs very properly to the previous chapter, since it stands in the closest relations of thought with the penitence of the people for their sins against the Lord Jesus. The next point made is the purifying of the people from their sins, as shown by specifying two most besetting sins of the ancient Hebrews, idolatry and false prophesying, both of which are thoroughly removed from the land (verses 2-6). Then, by association of ideas, the crucified Messiah is brought to view (verse 7); finally, the ungodly portion are cut off, only one-third part remaining, but these are purified by stern discipline, and come to know Jehovah as their God (verses 8, 9). H. C.

1. It is a fountain opened; for whoever will may come and take the benefit of it; it is opened not only to the house of David, but to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; to the poor and mean as well as to the rich and great; or it is opened for all believers who as the spiritual seed of Christ are of the house of David, and as living members of the Church are inhabitants of Jerusalem. Through Christ all that believe are justified, are washed from their sins in His blood, that they may be made to our God kings and priests (Rev. 1 : 5, 6). H.

This Fountain is open still. Fresh, efficacious, and free as on the day when His mighty sacrifice was offered, the merit of Immanuel still continues. I need not explain that this Fountain is not literal. It is not the water of baptism ; it is not the wine of the Lord’s Supper ; it is not the literal blood of the Saviour, for neither baptismal water nor sacramental wine can wash away sin, nay, nor the actual blood of Christ, understood in a corporal or carnal sense. But the Fountain must be sought in the written Word—in the testimony which God gives concerning His Son—in such sayings as these : “The blood (i.e., the atonement) of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.” “Come and let us reason together. God hath sent forth His Son, a propitiation for sin.” This truth concerning Jesus, published in the Bible, is the Fountain opened to the world—the man who believes that truth is the man who has his sins washed away. And what I pray you to realize and remember is, that the Divine atonement of Jesus is of exhaustless value and unfading virtue, and is this moment as dear to God as the day when it first was finished. You that have faith in the Fountain, frequent it. Beware of two errors which are very natural and very disastrous. Beware of thinking any sin too great for it ; beware of thinking any sin too small. There is not a sin so little but it may be the germ of everlasting perdition ; there is not a sin so enormous but a drop of atoning blood will dissolve it as utterly as if it were drowned in the depths of the sea. Hamilton.

God does not tell us whether the fountain opened in the house of Judah, for sin and for uncleanness, sends forth its healing streams to other worlds than our own. But He tells us that the atonement itself, known, as it is, among the myriads of the celestial, forms the high song of eternity ; that the Lamb who was slain is surrounded by the acclamations of one wide and universal empire ; that the might of His wondrous achievements spreads a tide of gratulation over the multitudes who are about His throne ; and there never ceases to ascend from the worshippers of Him who washed us from our sins in His blood a voice loud as from numbers without number, sweet as from blessed voices uttering joy, when heaven rings jubilee and loud hosannas fill the eternal regions. T. Chalmers.

2. To show that the land is purified from its great sins, He makes no general statements, but simply individualizes two of the prominent and most dangerous sins of the covenant people—idolatry and false prophecy—and represents them to be effectually exterminated. “Cutting off the very names of idols, so that they should be no more remembered,” implies that idolatry is thoroughly expelled from the land. (See Hos. 2 : 17 ; 14 : 8 ; Micah 5 : 12–14.) The “prophets” named here in connection with idols before and “the unclean spirit” after must be false prophets, called prophets only because they falsely and foully assumed this name. The Lord will drive them out of the land, forcibly expel them. The reference to an “unclean spirit” recognizes Satanic agency.

5,6. He means to show that his position in life has been such as should remove all suspicion of his playing the false prophet. He has been held as a servant all his days. But there are palpable marks on his person that convict him of lying even now ; hence, one replies to him, “What mean those gashes on your hands?” He can only confess the truth : “They were inflicted by my associates according to the custom of idol worshippers, in their temples.” The word rendered “friends” means properly lovers ; but is used in the bad sense, and here of his fellow-idolaters involved like himself in this harlotry to which the word “lovers” refers. Jewish as well as profane history shows clearly that cutting the flesh was common in idol worship. (See 1 K. 18 ; Jer. 16 : 6 ; 41 : 5 ; De. 14 : 1.) The common idea of penance may be supposed to lie at the bottom of such practices ; a consciousness of guilt ; the demands of remorse ; coupled with the notion that the gods will exact some suffering for such sins, and hence each man had best inflict it upon himself rather than leave it for the gods to inflict. H. C.

7. Awake, O sword, etc. O thou, My sword of affliction, awake, arise and smite Him that is nearest and dearest unto Me ; even Him that is My coequal and coeternal Son, the image of Me, the invisible God, saith the Lord of Hosts ; smite thou this great Shepherd of My Church ; and His sheep, His disciples and followers shall be scattered, and shall both forsake Him and be severed from each other ; for even against those disciples also, as well as against their Master, will I stir up enmity and opposition in the world. Bp. Hall.—Here begins a new prophecy, importing that the Messiah, the great Shepherd, as He is described in this prophecy (chap. 11 : 4 ; Isa. 40 : 11 ; Ezek. 34 : 23), though with respect to His Divine nature He be “equal with

God" the Father (Phil 2:6), yet shall be delivered up to death by God’s determinate council and appointment. (See Acts 2:23; 4:28.) W. Lowth.

“Awake” (as if it had been asleep, at rest), “awake against My Shepherd” (the Messiah), described here as being “the man that is My nearest friend”—for such is the sense of the word rendered “My fellow.” This word occurs elsewhere only in the Pentateuch, and there in such passages as Lev. 6:2; 19:11, 15, 17; 25:15, etc., “Ye shall not lie nor deceive each man his near friend,” etc. “If a man lie unto his neighbor in that which was delivered him to keep, or hath deceived his neighbor,” etc. This usage shows that the word is used for the nearest human relationship, not involving consanguinity. It, therefore, well expresses the relation between the Father and the Son, when He is thought of as incarnate—in His human nature. This human nature of Jesus stood in this close relation to the Father. The bold metaphor, “Awake, O sword,” etc., has its analogy in Jer. 47:6, 7: “O thou sword of the Lord, how long ere thou wilt be quiet? Put up thyself into thy scabbard; rest and be still.” This sword of the Lord is the Lord’s executioner. So in our passage the Lord of Hosts commands the sword to its work, remarkably recognizing the Divine agency in the death of the Lamb of God. H. C.

Who is this Shepherd and Fellow of Jehovah? It might perhaps be any one who helps Him in the care of His flock. But the Lord’s words applying it to Himself show that, as in earlier passages of this prophet, it has its especial fulfilment in Him. He is the rejected Shepherd, He is the Man, the Fellow of God. Andrews.

“Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd.” These are the words of God the Father, giving order and commission to the sword of His justice to awake against His Son, when He had voluntarily made His soul an offering for sin; for it pleased the Lord to bruise Him and put Him to grief; and He was stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted (Isa. 53:4, 10). Observe: 1. How He calls Him. As God, He is My Fellow; for He thought it no robbery to be equal with God, He and the Father are one. He was from eternity by Him, as one brought up with Him, and in the work of man’s redemption He was His Elect, in whom His soul delighted and the counsel of peace was between them both. As Mediator, He is My Shepherd, that great and good Shepherd that undertook to feed the flock (chap. 11:7). He is the Shepherd that was to lay down His life for the sheep. 2. How He uses Him: Awake, O sword, against Him. If He will be a sacrifice, He must be slain, for without the shedding of blood, the life blood, there was no remission. Men thrust Him through as a foolish shepherd; God thrust Him through as the Good Shepherd (cf. verse 3), that He might purchase the flock of God with His own blood (Acts 20:28; for Messiah the Prince must be cut off, but not for Himself (Dan. 9:26). This sword must awake against Him; He having no sin of His own to answer for, the sword of justice had nothing to say to Him of itself, till by particular order from the Judge of all it was warranted to brandish itself against Him. He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world in the decree and counsel of God; but the sword designed against Him had long slumbered, till now at length it is called upon to awake and smite Him; for God spared not His own Son. H.

Let Divine and infinite justice turn itself which way it will, it finds One that can tell how to match it. For if it say, “I will require the satisfaction of man,” there is a man to satisfy its cry; and if it say, “But I am an infinite God, and must and will have an infinite satisfaction,” here is One also that is infinite, even “fellow” with God; fellow in His essence and being; fellow in His power and strength; fellow in His wisdom; fellow in His mercy and grace, together with the rest of the attributes of God. So that, let justice turn itself which way it will, here is a complete person and a complete satisfaction. Bungun.

It was when, fresh from the celebration of the paschal feast and His own supper, He had retired with His disciples, under the shade of night, to the Mount of Olives: “Then said Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of Me this night: for it is written, I will smite the Shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad” (Matt. 26:31). So it had been written in Zech. 13:7, respecting that peculiar Shepherd and His flock, who was to be Jehovah’s fellow, or rather His near relation—for so the word in the original imports; and hence, when spoken of any one’s relation to God, it cannot possibly denote a mere man, but can only be understood of one who, by virtue of His Divine nature, stands on a footing of essential equality with God. All other interpretations, whether by Jews or Christians, can only be regarded as shifts, devised to explain away or get rid of the plain meaning of the prophecy. And it was here more especially chosen by our Lord, as, more distinctly and emphatically perhaps than any other prediction in Old Testament Scripture, it combined with the peerless dignity of Christ’s nature the fearful depth of His humiliation and suffering; and so was at once fitted to instruct and comfort the disciples in respect to the season of tribulation that was before them. P. Fairbairn.

This wondrous cry was obeyed. The sword awoke against the Man, God’s fellow. It was “bathed in heaven.” And now no more is the cry raised, “Awake, O sword.” Against the people of God it is sheathed forever. Yet shall this dread moment never be forgotten. For even as in the glad valleys of earth, when sunshine is resting on the landscape, the sound of thunder heard remote only enhances the sense of security and deepens the feeling of repose, so in the climes of heaven’s day shall the memory of that hour so dark and that cry so fearful be to the souls of the ransomed a joy forever. Gilfillan.

7. And I will turn My hand upon the little ones. The same hand turned itself back to protect and bless “the poor of the flock that waited on Me,” as they are described, chap. 11 : 11. A few of the Jewish people received Jesus as their Messiah, became His disciples while He lived or converts to His faith after H’s death, and these became objects of His special care and love. The connection of this verse with the one immediately preceding falls under the law of association of ideas. The close analogy between the false prophet, whose hands had been gashed and pierced “in the house of his friends,” and the Messiah, whose hands were pierced in a death by crucifixion among those who ought to have been His friends, suggested the latter case, and led the prophet to speak of it here. This accounts for its coming in here out of place in the sense of being both aside from the general course of thought in this chapter and out of its chronological order—His violent death having been assumed in chap. 11, and certainly thought of as already past in 12 : 10 ; 13 : 1. This renewed allusion to it is therefore due to the power of this law of suggestion. H. C.

“He turns His hand upon the little ones.” Nothing less than this is His own promise by the mouth of one of His servants, who paints graphically the blessings of Christ’s reign. How amazing is this promise of God when we contemplate this hand in its omnipotence, and think at the same time on our own utter insiginsignificance, our deep unworthiness, our woeful weakness! Almost before we are aware how low and lost is our condition, the outstretched hand of God presents itself, at once a token and a pledge of communion, strengthening and guidance. What need we more than the clear certainty, that He thus turns His hand on us, as evidence that there dwells no longer in His mind the thought of wrath and vengeance against us? In communion with Him conscience becomes pacified; in His strength we can accomplish all things, even the most difficult; under His guidance we go trustingly forward. Van O.

8. Two parts therein shall be cut off and die. The severe judgments, foretold by our Saviour (Matt. 24), shall consume two parts in three of the nation; but a third part shall escape the general destruction and be left to be dispersed over the world to preserve a posterity to future generations. W. Lowth.

8,9. The primary sense of these verses is clear. Over all the land two parts out of three are cut off and die; the third part remaining is purified through the fires of earthly discipline. These become far more fully than before the people of the living God. H. C.

9. We have here, first, the trials, and then the triumphs, of the Christian Church, and of all the faithful members of it. I will bring that third part through the fire of affliction, and will refine and try them as silver and gold are refined and tried. This was fulfilled in the persecutions of the primitive Church, the fiery trial which tried the people of God then (1 Pet. 4 : 12). Those whom God sets apart for Himself must pass through a probation and purification in this world; they must be tried that their faith may be found to praise and honor. H.

It would seem as if even Omnipotence could not sanctify a fallen and sinful spirit without the employment of sorrow. It would seem that there is in every believer a certain dross which nothing except the furnace can dissipate—on every character certain stains which nothing but the sharp solvent, the severe corrosive of affliction can expunge. But in applying these painful processes, oh, how tender and sympathetic the Saviour is! He does not break the bruised reed. He apportions the trial to the exigency: and, mindful of the hour when He drank the Father’s cup and an angel from heaven strengthened Him, in handing to each disciple the cup of needful trial, His arm of omnipotent kindness encircles and supports the fatigued or fainting soul. And it is a glorious infirmity which thus brings into the spirit “the power of Christ.” Hamilton.

Fiery trials make the lustre of faith appear most, as gold shines brightest in the furnace; and if any dross be mixed with it, it is refined and purged from it by these trials, and so it remains by the fire purer than before. And thus the fire of suffering is the advantage of believers, both trying the excellency of faith, giving evidence of it, what if is, and also purifying it from earth and drossy mixtures and making it more excellently what it is; raising it to a higher pitch of resignedness and worth. In these fires, as faith is tried, the word on which faith relies is tried, and is found all gold, most precious. Leighton.

It would seem that if there be one element of this human life more needful than another for the perfecting of a sanctifying fellowship between the Saviour and the soul, it is the element of suffering. Therefore it is the unchanging law that we “bear about with us in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus”—that we “die daily” in Him—that we are “killed all the day long.” By such dying, nourishment is sent down to the very roots of life. Penitence feeds purity. The pangs exalt the joys. The dearest love tryst is often kept in a pavilion whose curtains are darkness, whose threshold is pain, whose “inhabitant” says daily, “I am sick.” Many a one—blessed be His name!—in hard toil, or in sore disaster, or in constant pain, or (sadder yet) in a constant sorrow, can say, “All is good and well. I find “treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places.” I am “winning Christ.” This is “the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings,” from which in due time fellowship in glory will arise.” A. Raleigh.

Slowly, and as it may seem to us quite imperceptibly, is God bringing this Divine work to completion in us. Blessed are they who shrink not from the sharper but not less needed means of its accomplishment, those trials and chastisements, those humiliations and self-denials, which are the pangs of transformation through which Christ is to be fully formed within us. “Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” “The more the marble wastes, the more the statue grows,” wrote Michael Angelo. And impossible as it will be for nature, let it not be impossible for grace to cry daily, “Welcome cross, welcome trials, welcome all things sweet or bitter, which shall bring forth within us that perfect man, that Divine ideal, visible ever to the eye of God, and growing more and more upon our sight as we grow up into Him who is our Head.” A. J. Gordon.

Tribulation comes, it will be as ye choose it, either an exercise or a condemnation. Such as it shall find you to be, will it be. Tribulation is a fire: does it find thee gold? it takes away the filth; does it find thee chaff? it turns it to ashes. Wherefore art thou disturbed? Thine heart is disturbed by the pressing troubles of the world, as that ship was in which Christ was asleep. Did not thy Lord tell thee the world should fail? So when the tempest beats furiously against thine heart, beware of shipwreck, awake up in Christ. Present faith is Christ present; waking faith is Christ awake; slumbering faith is Christ asleep. Augustine.

A man who once went out from the face of his Lord and wept says, “Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial.” It is “fiery,” there is no denying that. I know and you know how it burns, scorches, turns beauty to ashes; but the strangeness is not the strangeness of accident, or caprice, or mockery, or carelessness. It has not “happened” to you at all. Love that is infinite never mocks, never tantalizes, never forgets. Did you ever do that with your mother or your child? and your love is not infinite. “If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father,” yes, even when the good things come wearing the aspect and the name of losses, or bereavements, or disappointments! Providence never blunders. He who keeps the stars punctual and the wheels of the universe running in order, who without slumbering watches the sleep of all His fourteen hundred million children every night, makes no mistakes; He is never taken unawares by a disease or a cloud. The mystery is a mystery, but it has a revelation within it, and it brings heavenly gifts under its wings. F. D. H.

There is a wondrous power of explanation in “afterward.” This is the key which the Scriptures give us for the solution of the strange mystery of affliction. “No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” There are many things in God’s way with His people which, at the time, are dark and obscure, but which the future makes clear and plain. S. S. T.

God tries, in order that we may stand, and that our feet may be strengthened by the trial. “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for—not without dust and heat.” A. M.

No words can express how much the world owes to sorrow. Most of the epistles were written from a prison. Most of the psalms were born in a wilderness. The greatest thoughts of the greatest thinkers have all passed through fire. The greatest poets have “learned in suffering what they taught in song.” In bonds Bunyan lived the allegory that he afterward indited, and we may thank Bedford jail for the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” All the foremost worthies of our world, all the spiritual heroes of our race, have been men of sorrow and acquainted with grief. Take comfort, afflicted Christian! you have often prayed to be made of some service in the world before you die, and now the answer to that prayer has come. God tries you because in some way He is about to use you; for your history will furnish no exception to the rule that when God is about to make pre-eminent use of a man, He puts him in the fire. Charles Stanford.

The greatest of the proofs of Jesus Christ are the prophecies. Even if one man had made a book of predictions of Jesus Christ, as to the time and the manner of His coming, and if Jesus Christ had come in conformity with these prophecies, this would be of an infinite weight. But there is here a great deal more. There is a succession of men who, during four thousand years, constantly and without variation, come, one after the other, predicting the same event. There is a whole people which announces Him and which subsists during four thousand years in order still to render their testimony of the assurances which they have of Him, from which they cannot be turned aside by any menaces or any persecutions which befall them. This is in a very different degree important. Pascal.

The very heart and essence of the old dispensation, as its features are exhibited in the writings of historians, law-givers and prophets, was the great and unquenchable Messianic hope. In the Old Testament Christ is prefigured; in the New He is revealed. In His teaching we see in all their fulness those constant elements which all religion strives more and more clearly to express—the holiness and love of God, the dignity and brotherhood of man. And so He stands at the centre of all history as the fulfilment of all the yearnings of the past, the justification of all the hopes of the future. Apart from Him all the deepest elements of the Old Testament become unintelligible. Farrar.

The Man that is My Fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts. We call Him man, and man He is in everything but sin. The nature of man He took upon Himself. True man He showed Himself to be in all that pertained to His life on earth. As man He was born; He had an infancy, a childhood, a youth, a manhood. As man He grew in stature, He increased in wisdom, He dwelt with dutiful obedience in the humble home of His parents. As man He hungered and thirsted, toiled and rested, frequented the streets of cities, and traversed the highways of Galilee and Judea. As man He lived among, conversed with men. As man He took interest in everything human—He sympathized with human joys and sorrows. As man He evinced a human character, combining, as none other ever did, all virtues, all excellences in perfect proportion and absolute completeness. Perfect Man He was, He is, He shall be evermore! So we call Him God, and God He is if we have any proof that a God exists. God He is shown to be by Heaven’s attesting voice again and again; by the radiance of its transfiguring glory; by its power evinced in the darkened sun and rending rocks; by its messenger angels, visible at His advent and His tomb; and by its intervention in bearing Him upward on the clouds when He was parted from His disciples. God He is shown to be by the harmoniously inspired assertions of prophets, psalmists and apostles; by the testimony of the Holy Ghost, uttered through these. He it was, the Lord God, who walked with Adam in the garden, that appeared to the devouter patriarchs, that spake with Abraham as a Friend, that wrestled with Jacob, that communed with Moses, that uttered the Law in audible voice from Sinai, that companied with wandering Israel in the cloudy, fiery pillar, and shone in the shechinah of the holiest, and that revealed Himself to Elijah and the prophets as the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and the Ruler of nations, and as the Lord God, merciful and gracious, who will yet by no means clear the guilty.

And the God, so divinely attested, He proved Himself to be by knowledge and power, by word and deed. None of the thoughts of men but He unerringly discerned, nothing in their hearts but He fathomed to the depth. No measure of wisdom or acuteness in their reasonings but He, without previous study or thought, instantly apprehended, corrected, or overthrew. His own sublime, majestic declarations, “I am the truth, the light of the world,” were proven in the substance and the manner of His teaching. Truth never disclosed before, truth for whose disclosure the mind and heart of man had been long yearning, revelations of the heart, the purposes and doings of God, revelations of the human soul, its intrinsic grandeur and worth, its guilt, degradation, ruin, and its possible redemption from all; its immortality of anguish or blessedness, these transcendent truths, with many subordinate ones as needful, He disclosed plainly, fully in the tone of absolute authority, as one who spake from His own resources of positive knowledge.

So He proved Himself God by His deeds of infinite power. The recorded assertions of His apostles—that the Word was God; that the world was made by Him; that by Him and for Him all things that are in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, were created and do subsist, were substantiated by His own acts to men, in the instantaneous restoration of sealed senses and withered members, in the healing of incurable maladies, and in raising the dead to life. His creative power was evinced in turning water into wine and in multiplying the loaves and fishes. His absolute Lordship of nature was shown by the withering of the fig tree, by walking upon the sea, and by the stilling of the tempest at His word. His Divine power was further illustrated in His victory over Satan in Himself and His disciple. And He proved Himself God in the absolution He pronounced for sins and the peace which He wrought in penitent, believing souls. Such, so many, so convincing proofs incontrovertibly established upon the highest conditions of testimony have we that Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary, is Divine. Such, so many, so conclusive that we have none equal to these to prove there is a God.

Man and God He is—perfect Man and perfect God. God from eternity, the same yesterday, to-day and forever; man from the hour of His incarnation, onward, forever! So man and God, He comes to us with absolute fulness for all our wants. He stands before us in His humanity and divinity. As a man and brother, now, as when on earth, entering into our feelings, our experiences, side by side He stands, His eyes looking into ours, His heart bending in sympathy to our fears and griefs, and swelling with our hopes and joys, His voice speaking and His hand extended to us in comfort and help.

And as God, a Being utterly transcending our finite conception of knowledge, purity and power; a Being of infinite holiness, of limitless might and love, whose sovereignty is universal, absolute and eternal, He encompasses our path and overarches our life, constraining us to awe and reverence, to submission and obedience, and yet to trust and love. Such a Being, so adapted to all the needs of our imperfect, finite, and yet immortal nature; such a Being, so near and yet so far above us, so like and yet unlike, whose resources immeasurably exceed all our deepest desires and loftiest aspirations, we have in the person of the God-Man, Christ Jesus. And this person, so divinely and humanly constituted, so adapted to win our trusting affection and our adoring homage, presents Himself as taking this manhood upon His divinity expressly and solely for us, for our advantage, to reveal to us by His realized ideal of a perfect manhood the beauty and the greatness of unfallen human nature. And more, far more, by His infinite sacrifice to lift from us the burden of guilt, to meet for us the claim of God’s violated law, to raise us from the death of sin to the life of holiness, to restore the forfeited image of God in our souls, to reconcile us to God and bring us, self-alienated and outcast, back to the heart and home of God, to renew in us, and that forever, the life of God. B.

How deeply the doctrine of the incarnation, of the Divine-human complex person Jesus Christ, is involved in the whole Christian system is evident from the fact that the denial of this doctrine leads to the denial, one after one, of all the distinguishing doctrines of the Christian faith. A system without this doctrine ceases to urge the doctrines of grace. It loses its hold on the strongest feelings of the conscience and of the heart. It refuses to grapple with the great questions of theology. It praises the moral virtues; it wonders at all zeal. It has lost the feeling of the constant presence of that Captain of our salvation who has inspired the faith, quickened the ardor, aroused the intellect, and led forth the hosts of Christendom, “Its relation to Christ,” as has been well said, “is a past, a dead relation;” and so they eulogize Him as they do a hero, and venerate Him as they do a saint; but such eulogy and such veneration are faint and heartless when compared with the living energy of the faith of Paul or with the devoted love and absorbing contemplation of the beloved disciple who ever spoke and lived as in the presence of a living Lord. As a matter of fact, it is true that the greatest earnestness, the loftiest faith, the deepest religious experience, the most heavenly spirituality, the most awful sense of God’s majesty, and the most affectionate reliance upon His love have been found in connection with the belief in an incarnate God. And surely if anything can arouse all our powers, awaken our intensest love, make us self-sacrificing, fill us with the holiest zeal and the purest enthusiasm, and satisfy perfectly all our wants, it is living faith in such a Lord, who is not only a Lord, but a brother also; in whom all that we can venerate as Divine and all that we can love as human are combined in perfect harmony. H. B. Smith.