Isaias prophesied of the Christ whom he saw afar off, that he should be "a man of sorrows;" that he should be "despised and rejected of men;" that he should be "taken from prison and judgment, and cut off from the land of the living;" that he should be "numbered with the wicked in his death, and make his grave with the rich!" How light, how clear, how plain, all these prophecies now are to me, and to us all! How wonderfully in their minuteness they have been fulfilled, you already know.
His resurrection, also, was foretold by himself, but we did not understand his words until now. When he spoke of destroying the temple, and raising it in three days, he spoke of the tabernacle of his body! Oh, how many sayings, which, when spoken by his sacred lips, we understood not, now rush upon us in all their meaning, proving to us that every step of his life was foreknown to him; that he went forward to his death aware of all things whatsoever that were going to befall him!
But his resurrection was also foretold by the holy David, when he said, "Thou wilt not leave his soul in hell, nor suffer thy Holy One to see corruption;" and his arraignment before Pilate, Caiaphas, and Herod, was foretold by David, when he said: "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his Anointed;" yet the Lord saith, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." Also, my dear father, turn to the Psalms (22) of King David, and compare the following words, which speak of Messias, with what I have described in my previous letters:
"They shoot out the lip at me; they shake the head; they laugh me to scorn. They say, He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him. Thou hast brought me into the dust of death."
Read the same psalm of the holy king a little farther, and you will see these words, which were put by the royal prophet into the lips of his future Messias:
"The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. They part my garments among them, and upon my vesture cast lots!"
Read and compare these prophecies of Messias, with the accounts in my letters, dear father, and you will not only be convinced that Jesus is the Messias, but you will perceive that his humiliation and sufferings before Pilate and Caiaphas, his agony on the cross, his death and burial, instead, as we ignorantly conceived, of being evidences that he was not the Christ, are proof that he was the very Son of the Highest—the Shiloh of Jehovah foretold by the prophets—the Anointed King of Israel.
Oh, wonderful is all this! How marvelous these things passing before our eyes! Now all is dazzlingly clear! The Prophets are unveiled to our sight, and we see that these things must have happened to him. Oh, our darkness, our blindness, to have seen in the prophecies of Messias only the passages which speak of his glory and power! Read the Prophets no longer, my dearest father, with a veil before your eyes! See, in all you read, Jesus as the end of the Prophets, the goal of all their far-seeing prophecies, the veritable and sure realization of their prophetic visions.
Thus, my dear father, has Jesus in all particulars proved himself to be the subject of all prophecy—the King of Israel. But you will now ask, "Is he to re-establish the throne of David, and live forever?"
Yes, but not a Jerusalem of earthly splendor. Oh, how clear are all things to my apprehension now! The Jerusalem in which his throne is to be placed, is heavenly, and the true Jerusalem, of which the present one is but the material type—what the body is to the soul of man.