SERMON I.
THE TIME OF REFORMATION.
“Until the time of reformation.”—Heb. ix. 10.
The ceremonies pertaining to the service of God under the Sinaic dispensation were entirely typical in their character; mere figures of Christ, the “High-priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands;” who, “not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, has entered once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” Sustaining such a relation to other ages and events, they were necessarily imperfect, consisting “only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances,” not intended for perpetual observance, but imposed upon the Jewish people merely “until the time of reformation,” when the shadow should give place to the substance, and a Greater than Moses should “make all things new.” Let us notice the time of reformation, and the reformation itself.
I. Time may be divided into three parts; the Golden Age before the fall, the Iron Age after the fall, and the Messiah’s Age of Jubilee.
In the Golden Age, the heavens and the earth were created; the garden of Eden was planted; man was made in the image of God, and placed in the garden to dress and to keep it; matrimony was instituted; and God, resting from his labor, sanctified the Seventh Day, as a day of holy rest to man.
The Iron Age was introduced by the temptation of a foreigner, who obtruded himself into Paradise, and persuaded its happy denizens to cast off the golden yoke of obedience and love to God. Man, desiring independence, became a rebel against Heaven, a miserable captive of sin and Satan, obnoxious to the Divine displeasure, and exposed to eternal death. The law was violated; the image of God was lost, and the enemy came in like a flood. All communication between the island of time and the continent of immortality was cut off, and the unhappy exiles saw no hope of crossing the ocean that intervened.
The Messiah’s Age may be divided into three parts; the time of Preparation, the time of Actual War, and the time of Victory and Triumph.
The Preparation began with the dawning of the day in Eden, when Messiah came in the ship of the Promise, and landed on the island of Time, and notified its inhabitants of his gracious intention to visit them again, and assume their nature, and live and die among them; to break their covenant allegiance to the prince of the iron yoke; and deliver to them the charter, signed and sealed with his own blood, for the redemption and renovation of their island, and the restoration of its suspended intercourse with the land of Eternal Life. The motto inscribed upon the banners of this age was,—“He shall bruise thy heel, and thou shalt bruise his head.” Here Jehovah thundered forth his hatred of sin from the thick darkness, and wrote his curse in fire upon the face of heaven; while rivers of sacrificial blood proclaimed the miserable state of man, and his need of a costlier atonement than mere humanity could offer. Here also the spirit of Messiah fell upon the prophets, leading them to search diligently for the way of deliverance, and enabling them to “testify beforehand of the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.”
Then came the season of Actual War. “Messiah the Prince” was born in Bethlehem, wrapped in swaddling-bands, and laid in a manger. The Great Deliverer was “made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” With an almighty hand, he laid hold on the works of the devil, unlocked the iron furnace, and broke the brazen bands asunder. He opened his mouth, and the deaf heard, the blind saw, the dumb spake, the lame walked, and the lepers were cleansed. In the house of Jairus, in the street of Nain, and in the burial-ground of Bethany, his word was mightier than death; and the damsel on her bed, the young man on his bier, and Lazarus in his tomb, rising to second life, were but the earnests of his future triumph. The diseases of sin he healed, the iron chains of guilt he shattered, and all the horrible caves of human corruption and misery were opened by the Heavenly Warrior. He took our yoke, and bore it away upon his own shoulder, and cast it broken into the bottomless pit. He felt in his hands and his feet the nails, and in his side the spear. The iron entered into his soul, but the corrosive power of his blood destroyed it, and shall ultimately eat away all the iron in the kingdom of death. Behold him hanging on Calvary, nailing upon his cross three bills; the handwriting of the law which was against us, the oath of our allegiance to the prince of darkness, and the charter of the “everlasting covenant;” fulfilling the first, breaking the second, and sealing the third with his blood!
Now begins the scene of Victory and Triumph. On the morning of the third day, the Conqueror is seen “coming from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah.” He has “trodden the wine-press alone.” By the might of his single arm, he has routed the hosts of hell, and spoiled the dominions of death. The iron castle of the foe is demolished, and the hero returns from the war, “glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength.” He enters the gates of the everlasting city, amid the rejoicing of angels, and the shouts of his redeemed. And still he rides forth in the chariot of his grace, “conquering, and to conquer.” A two-edged sword issues from his mouth, and in his train follow the victorious armies of heaven. Lo! before him fall the altars of idols, and the temples of devils; and the slaves of sin are becoming the servants and sons of the living God; and the proud skeptic beholds, wonders, believes, and adores; and the blasphemer begins to pray, and the persecutor is melted into penitence and love, and the wolf comes and lays him down gently by the side of the Iamb. And Messiah shall never quit the field, till he has completed the conquest, and swallowed up death in victory. In his “vesture dipped in blood,” he shall pursue the armies of Gog and Magog on the field of Armageddon, and break the iron teeth of the beast of power, and cast down Babylon as a millstone into the sea, and bind the old serpent in the lake of fire and brimstone, and raise up to life immortal the tenants of the grave. Then shall the New Jerusalem, the metropolis of Messiah’s golden empire, descend from heaven, adorned with all the jewelry of creation, guarded at every gate by angelic sentinels, and enlightened by the glory of God and of the Lamb; and the faithful shall dwell within its walls, and sin, and sorrow, and death, shall be shut out for ever!