are the words which I spake unto you while I was still with you." Lnke xxiv. 45. "Then opened He their understanding that The Gracious they might understand the Scriptures." A few Opening. hours before, on His way to Emmaus, He had Luke xxiv. 32. opened the Scriptures to His disciples; now He opens His disciples to the Scriptures. And well He may, for this double opening is necessary and indeed indispensable: first, the outward opening, or the illumination of the truth; and second, the inward opening, or the illumination of the heart. For, in order to see a landscape, two things are necessary: first, the landscape itself; and second, an eye to see it. The landscape is the truth and the eye is the heart. And the inward opening is the key to the outward opening. Open Thou, Psalm exix. 18. then, our eyes, O Lord of Light, that we may behold wondrous things out of Thy Law. Yea, Spirit Most Holy— Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Paradise Lost. Having thus the Anointing from the Holy One, 1 John il. 20. we shall indeed know all things. "Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer, and should rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name unto all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem and ye are witnesses of these things." "Thus it is written": the expression of course refers to the Old Testament. Nearly a hundred times does it recur in the New The Holy Necessity. Luke xxiv. 46-48. Rev. xix. 10. Testament, to say nothing of the numerous references elsewhere to the "Scriptures." Verily the Old Testament is a witness to Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ of God. The Spirit of Prophecy is the Testimony of Jesus. "That the Christ should suffer, and rise from the dead the third day." It Luke xxiv. 25-27. recalls the saying of the Walk to Emmaus: "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?" And, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. How powerfully St. Paul felt that the Death and Resurrection of the Messiah had been foretold in the Old Testament, and that these two facts constitute the Gospel, is evident from his strong language in his Letter to the Corinthians: "Brethren, I declare anew unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are being saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye believed in vain: for I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." Jesus Christ did not die and rise again in order to fulfill the Old Testament; but His Death and Resurrection had been foretold in the Old Testament, because God could have no other way of saving sinners than by the Death and Resurrection of a Divine Mediator. The necessity was prophetic 1 Cor. xv. 1-4. because it had been moral. " And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name unto all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem." 66 Repentance," i. e., change of moral purpose, amendment of habit, revolution of life: "And remission of sins," i. e., release from the penalties of the law, discharge from the condemnation of conscience, absolution from the Judge of Souls. "Should be preached," i. e., announced as the Divine Salvation, proclaimed as God's way of saving, published as the Gospel, or God's good News. "In His Name," i. e., in the sphere of Christ's Person, in and through virtue of and means of Christ's nature, and character, and death, and resurrection, and work. It is just because Jesus Christ was what He was and did what He did that repentance and remission of sins are possible. "Unto all the nations." Not only to the Jews, but also to the Gentiles; not only in Palestine, but also in Asia Minor, and Italy, and Germany, and Russia, and Turkey, and Great Britain, and America, and China, and Africa, and the isles of the seas. "Beginning from Jerusalem." Ay, begin from the city of the Abrahamic, covenanted people, for salvation is of the Jews; the city of John iv. 22 the Temple and the daily Sacrificial Lamb; the city of His own defeat on Cross and in Tomb; the city of His own Resurrection and Epiphanies, whereby He proved Himself to be the promised Christ of God and Lord of Eternity. "And ye are witnesses of these things," i. e., the life, and character, and sufferings, and death, and burial, and resurrection of the Son of God. God grant that Phil. iii. 10, 11. The Matchless Luke xxiv. 49. Joel ii. 28, 29. Acts ii. 33. we also may know the fellowship of His sufferings and the conformity to the likeness of His death, that so we may know the power of His resurrection and attain unto it. And now we come to a matchless Promise: "Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye are endued with power from on high; for John baptized with water: but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence." "Behold, I send forth the Promise of My Father upon you." That Promise of the Father was the Father's Promise of the Spirit. And that Promise was already eight hundred years old. Jehovah, speaking by the mouth of His prophet Joel, had declared: "It shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions, and even upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out My Spirit." And in pouring out the Spirit the Risen Lord declares that He will act conjointly with His Father: "Lo, I send forth the Promise of My Father upon you." Accordingly, on the day the Pentecostal Spirit was poured out Peter emphatically announced: "Being, therefore, exalted by the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the Promise of the Holy Spirit, He hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear." “But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem." Waiting is still often a large part of life's discipline. It is true, e. g., in respect to our under standing of those prophetic Scriptures which yet remain unfulfilled: waiting is our duty here rather than prophesying. Again: waiting is true in respect to theology, or our knowledge of the doctrinal Scriptures. There is no such exposition of Scripture as the Providence of God, no such teacher of theology as the tuition of passing events. Once more waiting is true in respect to capacity for duty, or access of spiritual power. There are times when the Providence of God brings us into direst straits mountains on the right, mountains on the left, Egyptians behind, Red Sea before: and then the voice of the Lord God comes down : to us saying: "Fear not: stand still and see the Exodus xiv. 13. salvation of the Lord which He will show to you this day." In quietness and in confidence shall Isaiah xxx. 15. your strength. Yea, there are times when be They also serve who only stand and wait. "Until ye are clothed with power from on high." For spiritual investiture is the soul's true garment: spiritual-mindedness is the only real sovereignty. Not by might, not by power, but by Zech. iv. 6. My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. And it is as true to-day as it was in the days of Zerubbabel or of the Apostolic Church. Vain are our prayers and studies and ordinances and enterprises and sacrifices unless the Holy Ghost is with us. Let us, each of us, then tarry in his Jerusalem until he is clothed with power from on high. "For John indeed baptized with water." But, although that baptism was a genuine baptism, it was only a symbol; it conveyed no real grace: like the divers Heb. ix. 9, 10. |