The Stone of Stumbling.
viii. 14. And He shall be for . . . a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel.
This prophecy refers to our Lord Jesus Christ, and it has had a threefold fulfilment. It was fulfilled—1. In His own personal history. When He was made manifest to Israel He was so contrary to their conceptions of what the Messiah would be—in the lowliness of His condition, in the spirituality of the kingdom He set up, and, above all, in the ignominiousness of the death He accomplished at Jerusalem,—that they “stumbled at” and rejected Him. 2. In the experience of His disciples in all ages. In them He has been again despised and rejected. This He foresaw and predicted (John xv. 18–21, &c.). In the world there is an irreconcilable hatred of Christ as He reappears in His people (Gal. iii. 28, 29). 3. In the hostility which faithful preaching has always created. The preaching of the Gospel is the preaching of Christ (Acts v. 42; 1 Cor. i. 23; 2 Cor. iv. 5). The great evangelical doctrines all centre in and flow from “Christ and Him crucified,” and can never be clearly and faithfully proclaimed without awakening the disgust and enmity of the carnal heart. They necessarily humble sinful men, and they hate to be humbled. The offence of the cross is not yet ceased; multitudes still stumble at the truth, being disobedient.
1. How sad that Christ should be an offence and a stumbling-stone to a single soul! That His Word, which is sufficient for all the purposes of salvation, should become to any “the savour of death unto death”! 2. How terrible, and earnestly to be shunned, is that unbelief which thus reverses the design of God’s greatest mercies! 3. Whatever others may do, let us, with penitent and thankful hearts, make Christ our “sanctuary.”—Manuscript Sermon.