The Messiah in Moses and the Prophets

by Eleazar Lord

In the minds of the patriarchs and prophets, therefore, the human likeness in which he visibly appeared was intimately and familiarly associated with his person. When they thought of him, they thought of him in that form, and accordingly his visible appearance in that form occasioned little or no surprise. They knew, it may well be believed, from and after the first appearance or announcement of the Messiah in Eden, that human nature and the human form were appointed and essential conditions of his complex official person and his sacerdotal work. Every typical sacrifice, the piacular shedding of blood, the altar typifying the cross, the burnt offering, the paschal lamb, every net of worship founded on the revealed doctrine of mediation, implied this distinctive apprehension of his person as Mediator. To suppose that patriarchs and prophets to whom he appeared in this manner, and whom he inspired to teach others, did not know and recognize him in his true character, is not less derogatory to him than to them; and to suppose that those who earliest offered typical sacrifices did not as truly and adequately understand what belonged to his personal and official character as those who succeeded, is to nullify their worship and their faith, and to treat the system as a device of sinful and ignorant men, rather than as divinely revealed and sanctioned.

But the Divine Mediator being thus clearly and familiarly known from the first beginning of the race, as to the constitution of his complex official person, his delegated character, his sacerdotal and mediatory work; this knowledge being common to all true worshippers, and being illustrated and confirmed to others by local visible appearances of the Personal Word, by oral instructions from inspired men, and by the external institutions, rites and forms of the true worship; it is obvious how, and with what facility, the adverse party, the worshippers of Baal after the deluge, obtained their antagonist counterfeit notions of the incarnation of their rival god, and afterwards of other spiritual beings and disembodied intelligences; of a shekina of visible glory as the residence or tabernacle of Baal; of mediation, oracular responses, altars, sacrifices, incense, &c. To suppose that any one of these things was originally conceived and invented by the natural reason of man, is at once to yield the question between revealed religion and the competency of fallen man to devise one which should obtain the undivided suffrage of nine tenths of the human race from age to age. The utter absurdity of such a supposition is shown by the fact that all the different nations and tribes of idolaters have, from the earliest records and traditions of their history, held essentially the same ideas upon these and kindred subjects. In the history of some countries, indeed, as in that of India, Thibet and China, the notion of the incarnation, and of repeated incarnations, of their false god is more conspicuous than in that of others. But the notion that the shedding of blood would procure the remission of sin, that the piacular sacrifices must be offered on an altar and burnt with fire, that the firstlings of the flock must be sacrificed, and that incense must be burned by consecrated priests, has prevailed among all pagan nations and tribes, with or without letters, in all climates, and in all ages, and if not derived from the descendants of Noah at the dispersion, we must, by ascribing the invention to each distinct community for itself, imagine a greater miracle than that of the inspiration of true prophets.

The revolt of the arch-apostate, with his angels and the head of the human race, was an open renunciation of allegiance to Jehovah as Creator, Lawgiver and Ruler, from which a total and ceaseless alienation and opposition ensued, which, but for his redemptive work, would have subverted and defeated his design as Creator. To counteract and overcome that revolt required his humiliation unto death. Prior to that event, his opposers denied his prerogatives and rights as Creator, Lawgiver and Ruler, and arrogated them for creatures. The antagonist system of rivalship and homage was exhibited in the face of the universe in the forms of political tyranny and idolatry. To reässert and exhibit to the whole universe his claims, after his humiliation, he rose from the grave, ascended on high, was invested with all power in heaven and earth, and in his glorified and visible person as God-man was recognized as swaying the sceptre of universal empire.

His claims and prerogatives as Creator, Upholder and Ruler being thus manifested and established, and the efficacy of his vicarious death being at the same time demonstrated by the conversion and salvation of multitudes from age to age, he will at length return to the earth to consummate his victory over all adversaries, to remove the curse and restore the earth to its primeval state, assume his visible regal sway, and establish his everlasting kingdom.

The union, as appointed and fixed in the order of events, of the Divine and human natures in the Person of the God-man, was a primary condition in the great scheme of Divine works and manifestations. That union is, accordingly, implied in all the designations, whether prophetic or otherwise, of the Anointed, or official Person; the Logos, who was in the beginning; the Christ, who was before all things. On the basis of this union of the second Person of the Godhead with human nature, rendering him capable of subordinate relations and agencies, the works of creation, providence and grace were delegated to him by the Father.

Such a provision in the constitution of his official person, in order to the subordinate relations, delegated agencies, and visible manifestations, involved in his undertaking, would seem manifestly necessary. Apart from that provision, he was in all respects equal with the Father; and in respect to his person, therefore, some special ground of subordination, in order to the delegation to him of such works in such relations with man, and with material and visible things, would seem to be necessary. Again, the works delegated to him, and for which he was sent of the Father, all of them in some relations, and many of them absolutely, implied and required this union of the human nature with his person. Accordingly, in this delegated, subordinate official Person, he was foreordained before the foundation of the world, and had glory with the Father before the world was.

By him and for him, in his official person and delegated character, are all things. By him and for his pleasure they were created. He upholds all things, and by him all things consist.

His undertaking included the works of creation, providence and redemption; the physical and moral government of the world, and the manifestation of the Divine perfections to all intelligent creatures.

In the execution of his undertaking, local and visible manifestations of his person and of his official prerogatives and acts were indispensable, in the relations he was to sustain as Lawgiver and Ruler, Prophet and Priest. His undertaking comprised a succession of acts and dispensations, and of corresponding changes in the manner of his agency, the nature of his manifestations, and the immediate objects of his administration. In these respects the progress of his work is indicated in the revelation he has made in the Holy Scriptures, in which his person and his acts appear, from stage to stage, in different aspects. He speaks of himself, and is spoken of by the inspired writers, sometimes with reference only to his Divine, and at other times with reference only to his human nature. On some occasions acts are ascribed to him which are proper to him only as Divine; and on other occasions such as could be affirmed of him only as human; as in one case, the act of creation, and in the other, the act of walking.

It is in this complex person that he is primarily the object of all our knowledge of the Deity as revealed in the Scriptures. He is the image, the visible manifestation of the invisible God, whom no man hath seen or can see. He in this person hath declared, manifested the Father; no less under the earliest, than under the present dispensation.