CHAPTER XX.
The prophetic period.—The fourteenth verse of the seventh
chapter of Isaiah explained.
The claims of Christ to be the Logos or Son of God, in the Alexandrian sense, are made manifest by prophecy and miracles. The Jews, influenced by the prophets of their nation, believed that a deliverer would some day appear, who would deliver them out of the hands of all their enemies, and establish a temporal kingdom on the earth. But up to the time when Christ appeared, and even to the present day, no one had shown himself who realized their idea of this divine mission. The Christians at the time of Christ believed that he was the one spoken of by the old prophets, and that a spiritual deliverer, one who was to deliver men from the power of Satan, had been mistaken for one who with temporal power would rescue the Jewish people from the hands of their foes.
Barnabas, the companion of Paul, firmly believed this to be so, and took pains to cite many texts from the Old Testament to prove it. He cites numerous passages from Daniel, and all the prophets, and especially searched the pages of Isaiah, where he claims to have found at least sixteen different references made to Christ as the coming Saviour. But in all his references to the prophecies he makes none to the celebrated passage in the seventh chapter of Isaiah, on which is founded the doctrine of the divine conception of Christ from a Virgin. He makes no allusion to the fourteenth verse of the chapter at all, so that he was ignorant of the very foundation on which the Christianity of the second century was reared. Nor does Polycarp or Ignatius, except where their writings have been clearly defaced by the forgeries of men, who wished to establish the new ideas of the day by the authority of the fathers.
But when we come down to the second century, as far as the times of Justin Martyr, we find pages in the writings of the day filled with a new class of citations from the Old Testament, all of which foreshadow the appearance of Christ, his birth from a virgin, and point him out as the one foretold by the prophets. In his Apology to the emperor, Justin Martyr quotes numerous passages from the Old and New Testaments to prove the divine mission of Christ, and speaks of his miraculous conception from the Virgin. (Apology, sec. 43)
We now enter a new era, filled with new ideas, and passages of Scripture which before had been overlooked, but which all at once were discovered to contain a meaning which concerned the eternal interests of mankind. The Synoptics are now spread out before the world, and Christianity, armed by the voice of the prophets of God, is prepared to make a new start. One fact will appear clear as we approach the end of this subject, that all the men who undertook to strengthen the cause of Christianity by the application of prophecy to the person of Christ were ignorant of Jewish history, and either wofully misunderstood the language of the prophets, or foolishly attempted to pervert it.
There are four prophecies cited in the Gospel of Matthew from the Old Testament, which it is claimed point out Christ as the one foretold by the old Jewish prophets. 1st. "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." (Matt. i. 23.) It must be borne in mind, as has been before stated, that when the new idea of the Logos was started, it was found necessary in some way to make Christ more than mortal. To be the Son of God in the Alexandrian sense he must have God for his father, and this could be only brought about through a virgin overshadowed by his divine presence. In the zeal of these men, who undertook to prove it, they selected a passage from Isaiah which had no application to anything outside of the Jewish history of the day.
Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel, united and made war on Ahaz, king of Ju-dah, and marched upon Jerusalem. Ahaz became alarmed at the combination, and feared the capture of the holy city and the destruction of his kingdom. The Lord took compassion on him and his people, and sent Isaiah to him with an order to meet him at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, where he would inform him what would be the fate of Judah and her enemies.
"Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field; and say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be faint-hearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying, Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal. Thus saith the Lord God, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass. For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin: and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established. Moreover, the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings. The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria." (Isaiah vii. 3-17.)
The Lord told Ahaz not to fear or be fainthearted, and he undertook to tell him how long it would be before Rezin and Pekah would be defeated and driven away. In fixing the time, Isaiah indulges in a poetic license, and purposely rendered it obscure. The language used expresses this meaning: If a virgin should conceive from that time, the day when the Lord spoke to Ahaz, the child would be born before his enemies would be subdued or driven away; but not a great while before, for when they were driven away, the child would still be so young as not to know how to refuse the evil and choose the good. If the Lord did not tell Ahaz in some way when his enemies would be subdued, then the object of the interview entirely failed; for that was just what Ahaz wanted to know, and which the Lord promised to disclose to him. Be not faint-hearted, neither be afraid, for in such a time your deliverance shall come. If the Lord wished to inform him that he would be delivered from Rezin and Pekah, after the Messiah spoken of in the Scriptures should come, which happened seven hundred years later, he would know no more after, than he did before he conversed with the Lord. The Lord did not tell him the precise day, but furnished Ahaz the data by which he might make his own calculations.