In this conquest David “gave to men” rather than “received”—gave even to his stubborn enemies (witness his subsequent transaction with Araunah the Jebusite for the site of the temple); for that which he took from them served to build amongst them God’s habitation: “that,” as the Psalmist sings, “the Lord God might dwell with them.” St Paul’s adaptation of the verse is both bold and true. If he departs from the letter, he unfolds the spirit of the prophetic words. That David’s giving signified a higher receiving, Jewish interpreters themselves seem to have felt, for this paraphrase was current also amongst them.
The author of this Hebrew song has in no way exaggerated the importance of David’s victory. The summits of the elect nation’s history shine with a supernatural and prophetic light. The spirit of the Christ in the unknown singer “testified beforehand of the glory that should follow” His warfare and sufferings. From this victorious height, so hardly won, the Psalmist’s verse flashes the light of promise across the space of a thousand years; and St. Paul has caught the light, and sends it on to us shining with a new and more spiritual brightness. David’s “going up on high” was, to the apostle’s mind, a picture of the ascent of Christ, his Son and Lord. David rose from deep humiliation to a high dominion; his exaltation brought blessing and enrichment to his people; and the spoil that he won with it went to build God’s house amongst rebellious men. All this was true in parable of the dispensation of grace to mankind through Jesus Christ; and His ascension disclosed the deeper import of the words of the ancient Scripture. “Wherefore God saith” (and St Paul takes the liberty of putting in his own words what He saith)—“wherefore He saith: He ascended on high; He led captivity captive; He gave gifts to men.”
The three short clauses of the citation supply, in effect, a threefold measure of the gifts of Christ to His Church. They are gifts of the ascended Saviour. They are gifts bestowed from the fruit of His victory. And they are gifts to men. Measure them, first, by the height to which He has risen—from what a depth! Measure them, again, by the spoils He has already won. Measure them, once more, by the wants of mankind, by the need He has undertaken to supply.—As He is, so He gives; as He has, so He gives; as He has given, so He will give till we are filled unto all the fulness of God.
I. Think first, then, of Him. Think of what, and where He is! Consider “what is the height” of His exaltation; and then say, if you can, “what is the breadth” of His munificence.
We know well how He gave as a poor and suffering man upon earth—gave, with what affluence, pity and delight, bread to the hungry thousands, wine to the wedding-feast, health to the sick, sight to the blind, pardon to the sinful, sometimes life to the dead! Has His elevation altered Him? Too often it is so with vain and weak men like ourselves. Their wealth increases, but their hearts contract. The more they have to give, the less they love to give. They go up on high as men count it, and climb to places of power and eminence; and they forget the friends of youth and the ranks from which they sprang—low-minded men. Not so with our exalted Friend. “It is not one that went down, and another that went up,” says Theodoret. “He that descended, it is He also that ascended up far above all the heavens!” (ver. 10). Jesus of Nazareth is on the throne of God,—“the same yesterday and to-day!” But now the resources of the universe are at His disposal. Out of that treasure He can choose the best gifts for you and me.
Mere authority, even Omnipotence, could not suffice to save and bless moral beings like ourselves; nor even the best will joined to Omnipotence. Christ gained by His humiliation, in some sense, a new fulness added to the fulness of the Godhead. This gain of His sufferings is implied in what the apostle writes in Colossians i. 19 concerning the risen and exalted Redeemer: “It was well-pleasing that all the fulness should make its dwelling in Him.” His plenitude is that of the Ascended One who had descended. “If He ascended, what does it mean but that He also descended into the under regions of the earth?” (ver. 9). If He went up, why then He had been down!—down to the Virgin’s womb and the manger cradle, wrapping His Godhead within the frame and the brain of a little child; down to the home and the bench of the village carpenter; down to the contradiction of sinners and the level of their scorn; down to the death of the cross,—to the nether abyss, to that dim populous underworld into which we look shuddering over the grave’s edge! And from that lower gulf He mounted up again to the solid earth and the light of day and the world of breathing men; and up, and up again, through the rent clouds and the ranks of shouting angels, and under the lifted heads of the everlasting doors, until He took His seat at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens.
Think of the regions He has traversed, the range of being through which the Lord Jesus passed in descending and ascending, “that He might fill all things.” Heaven, earth, hades—hades, earth, heaven again are His; not in mere sovereignty of power, but in experience and communion of life. Each He has annexed to His dominion by inhabitation and the right of self-devoting love, as from sphere to sphere He “travelled in the greatness of His power, mighty to save.” He is Lord of angels; but still more of men,—Lord of the living, and of the dead. To them that sleep in the dust He has proclaimed His accomplished sacrifice and the right of universal judgement given Him by the Father.
Nor did Abraham alone and Moses and Elijah have the joy of “seeing His day,” but all the holy men of old, who had embraced its promise and “died in faith,” who looked forward through their imperfect sacrifices “which could never quite take away sins” to the better thing which God provided for us, and for their perfection along with us.[99] On the two side-posts of the gate of death our great High Priest sprinkled His atoning blood. He turned the abode of corruption into a sweet and quiet sleeping chamber for His saints. Then at His touch those cruel doors swung back upon their hinges, and He issued forth the Prince of life, with the keys of death and hades hanging from His girdle. From the depths of the grave to the heaven of heavens His Mastership extends. With the perfume of His presence and the rich incense of His sacrifice Jesus Christ has “filled all things.” The universe is made for us one realm of redeeming grace, the kingdom of the Son of God’s love.
“So there crowns Him the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown;
And His love fills infinitude wholly, nor leaves up nor down
One spot for the creature to stand in!”[100]