He might establish the second. The first seemed
great lesson taught; the great truth written down for man. Then and thus the fire ceased to burn, and the blood to flow. No more of such fire or such blood was needed. The first was taken away without the noise of axes or hammers, because its work was done.
5. For what end did He take away the first? That He might establish the second. The first seemed steadfast; Israel reckoned on it standing for ever; it had stood for many an age. Yet it gives way, and another comes: one meant to be more abiding than the first; one sacrifice, once for all; yet that sacrifice eternal; the same in its results on the worshipper as if it were offered up every day for ever; the basis and seal of the everlasting covenant. It was to make room for this glorious second that the first was taken away; this glorious second through which eternal redemption was accomplished for us.
Besides, it had come to be necessary, on other grounds, that the first should be taken away. It was beginning to defeat the very ends for which it was set up. Men were getting to look upon it as a real thing in itself; and to believe in it instead of believing in Him to whom it pointed. It was becoming an object of worship and of trust, as if it were the true propitiation; as if the blood of beasts could pacify the conscience, or reconcile God, or put away sin. It was becoming an idol; a substitute for the living God, and for His Christ, instead of showing the way of true approach and acceptable worship. As men in our day make an idol of their own faith, and believe in it instead of believing in the Son of God, so did the Jews of other days make the sacrifice their confidence, their resting-place, their Messiah. And as Hezekiah broke in pieces the brazen serpent when Israel began to worship it, so did God abolish the sacrifice.
That sacrifice was not in itself a real thing, nor did it accomplish anything real. It was but a picture, a statue, a shadow, a messenger,--no more. It was but the sketch or outline of the living thing that was to come; and to mistake it for that living thing itself was to be deluded with the subtlest of all
errors, and the most perilous of all idolatries. And what can be more dangerous for a soul than to mistake the unreal for the real; to dote upon the picture, and lose sight of the glorious Being represented? Ah, we do not thus deceive ourselves in earthly things! No man mistakes the picture of gold for gold itself, or the portrait of a loved face for the very face itself. Yet do we daily see how men are content with religious unrealities; the unrealities of a barren creed, or of a hollow form; the unrealities of doubt and uncertainty in the relationship between them and God. We find how many of those called religious men are satisfied with something far short of a living Christ, and a full assurance and a joyful hope.
Nay, they make this unreality of theirs an idol, a god; not venturing to step beyond it, not caring to part with it. They have become so familiar with it, that though it does not fill their soul, it soothes their uneasiness; it gratifies the religious element in their natural man; it pleases their selfrighteousness, for it is something of their own; and it saves them from the dreaded necessity of coming into direct contact with the real, the living Christ, of being brought face to face with God Himself.
Thus it comes to pass that a man's religion is often a barrier between his soul and God; the unreal is the substitute for the real; so that a man, having found the former, is content, and goes no farther; nay, counts it presumption, profanity to do so. To be told that the world, with its gay beauty and seducing smiles, comes between us and God, surprises no man; but to learn that the temple with its sacrifices, the Church with its religious services, does so, may startle some, nay, may exasperate them, as it did the Jews, to be told that their multiplied sacrifices and prayers were but multiplied barriers between them and God: not channels of communication, nor means of intercourse. The Jewish altar stood between the Jew and God; and that which was simply set as the ladder up to something higher became a resting-place. All the more, because it looked so real to the eye; while that to which it pointed was invisible, and therefore to sense unreal. But real as it looked, it was cold and
unsatisfying. It was a real lamb, and a real altar of solid stone and brass; it was real blood and fire and smoke; and to take away these might seem to take away all that was substantial. But, after all, these were the unrealities. They could accomplish nothing for the filling of the heart, or the pacifying of the conscience, or the healing of the soul's deep wounds. Yet they pointed to the real; and their very unreality was meant to keep man from making them his home, or his religion, or his god. Men might admire the holy symbols and majestic ritual; but the true use of such admiration was to lead them to reason thus, If the unreal be so attractive, what will the real be; if the shadow thus soothes and pleases, what will not the divine substance do; if the picture of Messiah, thus sketched in these ceremonies, be so fair and goodly, how much fairer and goodlier will be the living Christ Himself; if the porch of the temple, or the steps leading to that temple, be so excellent, what must the inner sanctuary be; and who would stand ths, all a lifetime, shivering in the cold without, when the whole interior, with all its warmth and splendour and life and vastness was thrown open, and every man invited to enter and partake the gladness?
Thus the "taking away of the first" was not the mere removal of what had done its work and become useless; but the abolition of that which had become an idol; a barrier between the Jew and God; quite as much as if the brazen altar had in the process of time become so enlarged as to block up the entrance into the holy place or the holiest of all. We read in Jewish history that once and again, during the seventeen sieges of Jerusalem, the gate of the temple was blocked up by the dead bodies of the worshippers. So did the access into the true tabernacle, not made with hands, become blocked up by the very sacrifices that were intended to point to the open door; and so in our day (long after that altar has been overturned and the fire quenched), is entrance into the holiest blocked up by our dead prayers, our dead works, our dead praises, our dead sacraments, our dead worship, our dead religion, quite as effectually as by our total want of these. A lesson hard for man to learn,
especially in days when religion is fashionable and forms are exalted above measure. Greatly is that text needed amongst us, "If the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Heb 9:14).
It is then through the "second," not the "first," that the conscience is purged and the man made an acceptable worshipper, capable of doing good works and doing them in the spirit of liberty and fearless gladness. It is with the second, not the first, that the sinner has to do in drawing near to God; and it is the second, not the first, that God has regard to in receiving the sinner, and receiving him on the footing of one whose sins and iniquities are remembered no more.
How wide the difference, how great the contrast between the first and the second! The first drew the veil and shut out the sinner from the holiest; the second rent it and bid him enter. The first filled the sinner's soul with dread, even in looking on the holiest of all from without; the second emboldened him to draw near and go up to the mercy-seat. The first made it death to cross the threshold of that inner shrine, where the symbol of the glory dwelt; the second made it life to go into the very presence of God, and provided the new and living way. The first gave no certainty of acceptance and laid the foundation for no permanent assurance; the second said, "Let us draw near with a true heart in the full assurance of faith"; "let us come boldly to the throne of grace." The first was never finished, even after many ages; the second was finished at once. The first was earthly, the second heavenly. The first was temporal, the second eternal. The first was unreal, the second real. The first pacified no conscience; the second did this at once, purging it effectually, so that the worshippers once purged had no more conscience of sins. The first was but the blood of one of Israel's lambs; the second the blood of the Lamb without blemish and without spot,--the precious blood of Christ!
Still there was much about that "first" to interest, to solemnise, to gladden. It was old and venerable, a true relic of antiquity, such as no modern Church can boast of. It was not one death, but many thousand deaths; not one victim, but ten thousand victims; each of them fulfilling a certain end, yet all of them unavailing for the great end,--complete remission of sin and the providing for the worshipper, a perfect conscience and reconciliation with the Holy One of Israel.
And that last Jewish sacrifice, at the hour of the crucifixion, which ended the "first" and began the "second"; was there not something specially solemn about it? Was there not something peculiar about it as the last? Like the last cedar of Lebanon, the last olive of Palestine, the last pillar of a falling temple that has stood for ages, the last representative of an ancient race, it could not but have something sacred, something noble about it.
An unbelieving Jew, worshipping in the temple, at the time would see nothing remarkable about it, save the unaccountable darkness which had for three hours covered Jerusalem, and the fearful earthquake, and the mysterious rending of the veil, the tidings of which would immediately spread both in the temple and the city. What can all this mean, he might say; but he knew not what they meant; nor that this was the last sacrifice, according to the purpose of the God of Israel. Not connecting the first with the second, nor the earthly with the heavenly, he would soon forget the darkness, and the earthquake, and the torn veil, coming next morning at nine o'clock to assist in the celebration of the morning-sacrifice. For the great break in the sacrifices was an invisible thing to him. To heaven it was visible, to angels it was visible, to faith it was visible; but not to unbelief. And unbelief would go on from day to day doting on the old sacrifice and admiring the old altar; till the Roman torch set fire to the goodly cedar of the holy places, and the Roman battle-axe shivered the altar in pieces, and brought to the ground porch, and tower, and wall,- -gate and bar, in one irrecoverable ruin; not one stone left upon another.
But how would a believing Jew view this last sacrifice? With mingled feelings in many ways; for as yet his eyes were but half opened; and though he might in a measure understand the first, he could not fully see the second, nor the first in connection with the second. It would still be to him sacred and venerable; though now he saw it, like the picture of a dissolving view, passing away and being replaced by another. Holy histories of his nation and precious recollections of his own experience would come up into view. From that sacrifice he had learned the way of forgiveness, perhaps from childhood. Often had the sight of it poured in happy thoughts and told him of the love of a redeeming God. Often had he stood at that altar with his little ones, and taught them from it the way of salvation through blood. Often had he seen the fire blazing and the smoke ascending, and the blood flowing, and he had mused over all these in connection with the first promise of Messiah's bruised heel, and the later prophecies of His pouring out His soul unto death. But now he was startled. That darkness, that earthquake, that rent veil; and in connection with all this, the scene in Golgotha now going on, seemed to say that sacrifice has done its work and must pass away. That has come at last which he had been long looking for; the better Lamb, the richer blood, the more perfect sacrifice. Now he sees the full meaning of the burnt-offering; now his faith lays its hand on the head of the true sacrifice; now he knows what John meant when he said, "Behold the Lamb of God"; and he can say with Simeon, "Lord, now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation."
And with what thoughts must the Son of God have seen from the cross the smoke of that last burntoffering ascending? For it was at the ninth hour, our three o'clock, when the evening lamb was laid on the altar, that Jesus "cried with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" Yes, when the Son of God, the true Sin-bearer, was uttering these words, Israel's last sacrifice was offered. It is finished, was the voice from the altar; it is finished was the voice from the cross. Now the last type is done; and Jesus
sees it (for the altar-smoke would be quite visible from Golgotha); Israel's long lesson of ages has been taught; the type and Antitype have been brought face to face. How often had Jesus seen the morning and evening lamb offered up; and in gazing on it realised his own sin-bearing work. Now he sees all accomplished; sin borne, peace made, God propitiated; and in testimony of this the last burnt-sacrifice offered up. All is done. He sees of the travail of His soul and is satisfied. He can now tell Jew and Gentile that atonement has been made by the better blood. Life has been given for life; a divine life for a human. He can say, Look no longer on yon altar; its work is done. Look to me, of whom it spoke during so many ages; look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.
And how does the Father view that last sacrifice? For four thousand years it had been the witness to the sin-bearing work of the coming Messiah. The Father had set it there to bear testimony to the propitiation of His Son. It said to Israel, and it said to the world before the days of Israel, The seed of the woman is to be man's deliverer. He is coming! He is coming to bear sin; to be wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities; to take the chastisement of our peace upon Him, and to heal us by His stripes. For ages that was the voice that came from the altar. It was the Father's voice foretelling the advent of His beloved Son. And now that voice from the altar is to die away. The testimony is to cease; for He to whom it was given is come. The ages of delay are over; the day of expectation has come to an end. The purpose of Jehovah is now consummated. The Father now delights in the accomplishment of His eternal design. Now grace and righteousness are one. So long as one burnt-offering remained unpresented, there was something awanting; something unfinished. But now the last of the long series has arrived. The type is perfected, the last stone has been laid; the last touch has been given to the picture; the last stroke of the chisel has fallen upon the statue. The imperfect has ended in the perfect, the unreal in the real; the first has become the last and the last
first. Now divine love can take its unimpeded way; no drag, no uncertainty, no imperfection now. Grace and righteousness have become one. The Father's testimony to the finished work of His Son now goes forth to the ends of the earth. That last sacrifice on Israel's altar was the signal for the forthgoing of the worldwide message of pardon,--righteous pardon,--to the guiltiest, the saddest and the neediest of the sons of men.
And how is this last sacrifice viewed by the Church of God? Not with regret, nor with disappointment at the thought that there is no such altar now; but with rejoicing that the work has been at length consummated, and that there is no necessity for the repetition of the sacrifice. Whilst to a believing Jew there was satisfaction in each recurring sacrifice day by day, there could not but be a feeling of uneasiness at that very repetition. If the sacrifice is sufficient, why repeat it? Or will the multiplication of imperfections produce perfection? If insufficient, what is there to look to for the pacification of the conscience? But the termination of the series was an unspeakable relief. It was the winding up of a work which had been going on for four thousand years. Now, then, God is satisfied. Now there is the certainty of remission. Now the conscience is purged. Now the soul is at rest. And thus that last burnt-offering gave to the Church the assurance that the reconciliation was accomplished. No more offering for sin! No more blood! the foundation is now secure. On it she stands, in it she rejoices. The "good conscience" is now secured. Fear and shame in drawing near to God are at an end for ever. There is nothing but boldness now; for by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Not by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He hath entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. By this blood He hath reconciled us to Himself. By this blood He daily cements the reconciliation, and keeps our souls in peace. By this blood He washes off the ever-recurring sins that would come between us and God, purging our consciences from dead works to serve the living God
(Heb 9:12,13).
Round the old altar on Moriah one nation gathered, for the worship of Jehovah, during a few earthly ages; but round the new altar is gathered the great multitude that no man can number, out of every nation and people; for we have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle. The first has been taken away, but the second has been set up, to stand for ever. Here we worship now; here shall be the eternal worship; the Lamb slain is the centre of worship for the universe of God, whether on earth, or in heaven, or throughout the wide regions which the creating Word has filled with suns and stars. On this divine altar shall all creaturehood lay its everlasting praise. From this altar shall ascend the never-ending son. This altar shall be the great centre of unity between the multitudinous parts or units of universal being. Here heaven and earth shall meet; here redeemed men and angels shall hold fellowship; here the principalities and powers in heavenly places shall learn the wisdom of God; here shall be found the stability, not of manhood only, but of creaturehood as well, the divine security against a second fall, against any future failure of creation, against any future curse, against the possibility of evil or weakness or decay. He has taken away the first, but He has established the second; and with that He has linked the establishment of all that is good and holy and blessed in His universe for evermore.
From this "second" also there goes forth the message of reconciliation; the announcement that peace has been made through the blood of the cross; the entreaty on the part of God, that each distant one would draw near, each wanderer re-enter his Father's house. To every one that is afar off, this great propitiation speaks, and says, RETURN! It bids you welcome, with all your worthlessness and unfitness, pointing to the ever-open door, and assuring you of reception, and pardon, and free love, without delay, without condition, and without upbraiding. From this centre the good news of God's free love to the unrighteous are going forth. In the simple reception of these by the sinner there is everlasting life; but
in the non-reception of them there is eternal death; for that blood condemns as well as justifies. It speaks peace, but it speak trouble and anguish. It contains life, but it also contains death. It introduces into heaven, but it casts down to hell. He who receives it is washed, and sanctified, and justified; he who rejects it is undone,--doomed to bear his own guilt, without reprieve, for ever. For you, or against you, through eternity that blood must be.
There has been a first, there is a second, but there shall be no third! The first could not suffice, either for salvation or for destruction; it did not save those who used it, nor did it ruin those who used it not, or who used it amiss. The second sufficed for both. It is able to save and to destroy, to forgive and to condemn. No third is needed, no third is possible. The second is established for ever. It is eternal. It is an everlasting sacrifice. It is an eternal ransom, an eternal redemption, an eternal salvation, an everlasting covenant, and an everlasting gospel. Its accompaniments and issues are everlasting life, everlasting habitations, everlasting consolation, an everlasting kingdom, an eternal inheritance, an eternal weight of glory, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Yes; this second is established, and shall stand for ever. He who accepts it becomes, like it, established, and shall stand for ever; for it has the power of imparting its stability to every one who receives God's testimony concerning it. This is "the living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious; to which coming we, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:4,5).
There shall be no third! This is the security and the joy of all who receive it. He who has taken away the first has established the second. Heaven and earth may pass away, but it must remain; and with it remains our reconciliation, our sonship, our royalty, and our eternal weight of glory. Were it possible that this second altar could be overthrown, or crumble down
through age; this second blood, and second covenant, and second priesthood become inefficacious or obsolete, then should our future be shaded with uncertainty. But all these being divine are eternal; and in their eternity is wrapt up that of every one who is now by faith partakers of them; in their eternity is wrapt up that of the inheritance, the city, and the kingdom, which become the possession of every one whom the blood has washed and reconciled.
For the cross is never old. The wood, and nails, and inscription have indeed perished long ago; but the cross in which Paul gloried stands for ever. That cross is the axle of the universe, and cannot snap asunder. That cross is the foundation on which the universe rests, and cannot give way. The cross of Golgotha is, in this sense, everlasting; and each one who glories in it becomes partaker of its immortality. In itself blood is the symbol of death; in connection with the cross of Christ, it is the emblem and the pledge of life. It is by blood that all that is feeble, and corruptible, and unclean is purged out of creaturehood. It is by blood that this race of ours is preserved against the possibility of a second fall, and this earth against the contingency of a second curse. It is by blood that the Church of God has won her victory, and been made without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. It is the blood that has given such resplendent glory to the New Jerusalem, and made its light so pure, for "THE LAMB is the light thereof."
And yet is it not on this very blood that the spirit of the age is pouring its contempt, as if it were the great disfiguration of Christianity, requiring to be explained and spiritualised, before it can be admitted to have any connection with a divine religion? Is it not against this blood that the tide of modern progress is advancing, to wash out every trace and stain of it? It is against the blood that unbelief is now specially declaring war, little supposing, in its blindness, what would be the consequences of success in this warfare. Take away that blood, and the security of the universe is gone. Take away the blood, and the gate of the glorious city closes against the sinner; nay, that city itself, with
all its beauty, and purity, and splendour, passes away like a vision of the night, each stone of it vanishing into nothingness, and its light becoming darkness.
CHAPTER 7.
MESSIAH WITHIN THE VEIL.
We spoke of Messiah longing for the time when the veil should be rent, and when, through Himself, there should be unobstructed access to the innermost shrine of God. "How am I straitened till it be accomplished." We spoke also of His dreading this rending, this death,--so that "with strong crying and tears He prayed to Him who was able to save Him from death" (Heb 5:7).
Let us now see Him looking beyond the veil, surveying the glory, and anticipating His own entrance into it, as our forerunner, the first fruits of them that slept, the first-begotten of the dead. "For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of God" (Heb 12:2). That to which He looked forward was not so much the rending of the veil, as the result of that rending,--both for Himself and for His Church, His body, the redeemed from among men.
The veil was rent; rent "once for all"; rent for ever. Yet there was a sense in which it was to be restored, though after another fashion than before. Messiah could not be "holden" by death, because He was the Holy One, who could not see corruption. Death must be annulled. The broken body must be made whole; resurrection must come forth out of death; and that resurrection was to be life, and glory, and blessedness. Through the rent veil of His own flesh, He was (if we may so use the figure) to enter into "glory and honour, and immortality." Thus He speaks in the sixteenth Psalm:--
"Therefore my heart is glad, Yea, my glory rejoiceth: My flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; Neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life: In thy presence is fulness of joy; At thy right hand are pleasures for evermore."
Let us dwell upon these verses in connection with Messiah's entrance within the veil.
The speaker in this Psalm is undoubtedly Christ. This we learn from Peter's sermon at Jerusalem (Acts 2:25). He is speaking to the Father, as His Father and our Father. He speaks as the lowly, dependent son of man; as one who needed help and looked to the Father for it; as one who trusted in the Lord and walked by faith, not by sight; as one who realised the Father's love, anticipated the joy set before Him, and had respect to the recompense of the reward.
He speaks, moreover, as one who saw death before Him,-- "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell"; and looking into the dark grave, on the edge of which He was standing, just about to plunge into it, He casts His eye upwards and pleads, with strong crying and tears, for resurrection, and joy, and glory,-- "Thou wilt show me the path of life." For the words of the Psalm are the united utterances of confidence, expectation, and prayer; not unlike those of Paul, "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness."
He speaks too as one who was bearing our curse; as one who was made sin for us; and to whom everything connected with sin and its penalty was infinitely terrible; not the less terrible, but the more, because the sin and the penalty were not His own, but ours. The death which now confronted Him was one of the ingredients of the fearful cup, against which He prayed in Gethsemane, "Let this cup pass from me"; for we read that, "in the days of His flesh He made supplication, with strong crying and tears, unto Him
that was able to save Him from death." In this Psalm, indeed, we do not hear these strong cryings and tears, which the valley of the Kedron then heard. All is calm; the bitterness of death is past; the power of the king of terrors seems broken; the gloom of the grave is lost in the anticipated brightness of the resurrection light and glory. But still the scene is similar; though in the Psalm the light predominates over the darkness, and there is not the agony, nor the bloody sweat, nor the exceeding sorrow. It is our Surety looking the king of terrors in the face; contemplating the shadows of the three days and nights in the heat of the earth; surveying Joseph's tomb, and while accepting that as His prison-house for a season, anticipating the deliverance by the Father's power, and rejoicing in the prospect of the everlasting gladness.
The first thing that occupies His thoughts is resurrection. The path of death is before Him; and He asks that He may know the path of life;--the way out of the tomb as well as the way into it. Death is to Him an enemy; an enemy from which as the Prince of life His holy soul would recoil even more than we. The grave is to Him a prison-house, gloomy as Jeremiah's low dungeon or Joseph's pit, not the less gloomy because He approaches it as a conqueror, as bringing life and immortality to light, as the resurrection and the life. Into that prison-house He must descend; for though rich He has stooped to be poor; and this is the extremity of his poverty, the lowest depth of His low estate,--even the surrender of that, for which even the richest on earth will part with everything,--life itself. But out of that dungeon He cries to be brought; and for this rescue He puts Himself entirely into the Father's hands, "Thou wilt show me the path of life."
Very blessed and glorious did resurrection seem in the eyes of the Prince of life, of Him who is the resurrection and the life. Infinitely hateful did death and the grave appear to Him who was the Conqueror of death, the Spoiler of the grave. He had undertaken to die, for as the second Adam He came to undergo the penalty of the first, "dust thou art and
unto dust shalt thou return"; yet not the less bitter was the cup, not the less gloomy was the valley of the shadow of death; not the less welcome was the thought of resurrection.
The next thing which fills His thoughts is the presence of God,--that glorious presence which He had left when He "came down from heaven." His thoughts are of the Father's face, the Father's house, the Father's presence. Earth to Him was so different from heaven. He had not yet come to the "Why hast Thou forsaken me?" but He felt the difference between this earth and the heaven He had quitted. There was no such "presence" here. All was sin, evil, hatred, darkness; the presence of evil men and mocking devils; not the presence of God. God seemed far away. This world seemed empty and dreary. He called to mind the home, and the love, and the holiness He had left; and He longed for a return to these. "Thy presence!" What a meaning in these words, coming from the lips of the lonely Son of God in His desolation and friendlessness and exile here. "Thy presence!" How full of recollection would they be to Him as He uttered them; and how intensely would that recollection stimulate the anticipation and the hope!
Of this same Messiah, the speaker in the psalm, we read afterwards, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God" (John 1:1); and elsewhere He speaks thus of Himself: "Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old; I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was...I was by Him, as one brought up with Him, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him" (Prov 8:22,30); and again, He, in the days of His flesh, thus prayed: "O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was" (John 17:5). Thus we see that the "presence" or "face" of God had been His special and eternal portion. His past eternity was associated entirely with this glorious presence. No wonder then that in the day of His deepest weakness,--when the last enemy confronted Him with his hideous presence, He should recall the
Father's presence; anticipating the day of restoration to that presence, and repossession of the glory which He had before the world was.
"Thy presence," said the only-begotten of the Father looking up into the Father's face! He speaks as the sin-bearer, on whom the chastisement of our sins was laid, and between whom and heaven these sins had drawn a veil; He speaks as an exile, far from home, weary, troubled, exceeding sorrowful even unto death; He speaks as a Son feeling the bitterness of separation from His Father's presence, and of distance from His Father's house; He speaks as one longing for home and kindred, and the unimpeded outflowings of paternal love. "Thy presence," says the Man of sorrows looking round on an evil world;--oh, that I were there! "Thy presence," says the forsaken Son of man, for "lover and friend hast Thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness";--oh, that I were there! "Thy presence," not this waste howling wilderness, this region of pain, and disease, and sin, and death, and tombs. "Thy presence," not these temptations, these devils, these enemies, these false friends; not this blasphemy, this reproach, this scorn, this betrayal, this denial, this buffeting, this scourging, this spitting, this mockery! "Thy presence,"--oh, that I were there; nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.
Only through death can He reach life, for He is burdened with our sin and our death; and death is to Him the path of life. He must go through the veil to enter into the presence of God. Only through the grave,--the stronghold of death, and of him who has the power of death,--can He ascend into the presence of God; and therefore, when about to enter the dark valley, He commits Himself to the Father's guidance, to the keeping of Him who said, "Behold my servant whom I uphold," the keeping of which He himself, by the mouth of David, had spoken: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." Bethlehem, Egypt, Nazareth, Capernaum, Gethsemane, Golgotha,--these were all but stages in His way up to "the presence"--the presence
of the Father; and it is when approaching the last of these, with the consciousness of His nearness to that presence, only one more dark passage to wind through, that He gives utterance to this psalm,--His psalm in prospect of resurrection and glory,-- "I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved: therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth; my flesh also shall rest in hope; for Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine holy One to see corruption; Thou wilt show me the path of life: in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore."
Connected with this "presence," this glory within the veil, he speaks of "fulness of joy." On earth, in the day of His banishment here, He found want, not fulness. He was poor and needy; no house, no table, no chamber, no pillow of His own. His was the extremity of human poverty; though rich He had become poor; he was hungry, thirsty, weary, with no place to lay His head. Though He knew no sin, He tasted the sinner's portion of want and sorrow. He was in the far country, the land of the mighty famine; and looking upwards to the happy heaven which He had left, He could say, "How many servants in my Father's house have bread and to spare, and I perish with hunger." Drinking also of the sinner's deep cup of wrath, He was the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. It was as such that He looked up so often as we find Him in the Gospels doing, and as we find Him in this Psalm, with wistful eye reminding Himself of the joy He had left, and anticipating the augmented joy that was so soon to be His when, having traversed this vale of tears, and passed through the gates of death, He was to re-ascend to His Father, and re-enter the courts of glory and joy. "Fulness of joy" is His prospect; fulness of joy in the presence of God. Concerning this going to the Father He spoke to His disciples; and then added, "These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." It is of this same full joy that He speaks in our psalm; a joy which was to be the fulness of all joy; a joy which was to be His
recompense for the earthly sorrow of His sin-bearing life and death; a joy which He was to share with His redeemed, and on which they too should enter, when they, like Him, had triumphed over death, and been caught up into the clouds to meet Him in the air; a joy which would be to them, in that wondrous day, infinitely more than a compensation for earthly tribulation; even as one of themselves has written, "Our present light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more eceeding and eternal weight of glory."
This was "the joy set before Him," because of which He endured the cross; and here He calls it FULNESS OF JOY. That which He calls fulness must be so; for He knows what joy is, and what its fulness is; just as He knew what sorrow was and its fulness. The amount of joy sufficient to fill a soul like His must be infinite; it must be joy unspeakable and full of glory. The amount of joy reckoned by the Father sufficient as the reward of the sorrow of such a Son, must be infinite indeed. What then must that be which Messiah reckons the fulness of joy. What a day was that for Him when, death and sorrow ended, He entered on life and gladness! And what a day will that be, yet in store for Him and for His saints, when we, as His joint-heirs, shall enter on all that life and gladness; the day of His glorious coming, when that shall be fulfilled which is written, "Come forth, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, and behold King Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him, in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart."
Besides the "presence" or "face" of God within the veil, Messiah sees the right hand; the place of honour and power and favour,--the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens; and at that right hand there are pleasures for evermore; eternal enjoyments, such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard. For all the things on which Messiah's soul rests are everlasting; the life, the fulness, the joy, the presence, the pleasures,--all eternal! No wonder, then, that He who knows what eternity is,--an eternity of glory and gladness,--should feel that "the