Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed she brought forth her children.
The Christian may perhaps suppose, as some have done, that Christ is the man-child here intended; but that cannot be. For Zion is the mother, and a mountain can never be literally understood to bring forth a man; the mountain is a figurative mother, and the child must be a figurative child.
What does the mother figuratively signify? is then the question most likely to lead us to the nature of the child. We have already seen that this term is constantly applied to Israel, and especially with reference to their spiritual state of regeneration through Christianity. Such we may presume, then, is the meaning of Zion here; and that the regeneration [pg 017] of the Jews through Christianity is the birth and parturition here spoken of.
Upon this view Judaism, or the Jewish Church will be the mother, and the Christian Church or Christianity her child—the man-child, who was ordained to rule all nations. Ps. ii.
The next question is, how the birth can be said to have preceded the labour-pains.
Mr. Lowth, to whom more than any other I feel indebted for much valuable assistance in explaining the Old Testament prophecies, supposes the labour-pains to be “the destruction of the Jewish Polity, making way for the growth of Christianity.” And this seems a plausible explanation, as these troubles of the Jewish Church followed the birth or promulgation of Christianity forty years.
But the solution is only plausible; for the growth is not the birth; or if it be taken as the birth, then it no longer precedes but follows the labour-pains, for whatever effect the destruction of Judaism had in promoting Christianity, this effect was subsequent and not prior to that event; and thus the solution fails in the main point.
Moreover, upon the spiritual plan of exposition, it may justly be objected, that these troubles of the Jewish Church were rather of a political than a spiritual character; and certainly in no way essential to the birth of Christianity, and cannot therefore be considered as the labour-pains, or even as the after-pains of that birth.
This objection being valid, let a more spiritual view be taken, and the objection will vanish. Let the worldly feelings which prevented the Jews from receiving Christ as their Messiah, and the inward struggle required to overcome these, symbolise the pains of labour, and the connexion will be evident. For this very struggle and victory over worldly feelings constitute the regeneration through Christ; and this therefore is essential to the birth of Christianity, “the new birth unto righteousness.”
But with the first Christians this struggle could not precede the birth, for they received Christ, before they were aware of the spiritual nature of his mission; the Apostles did not look for a spiritual Messiah until after the day of Pentecost, and therefore the birth preceded [pg 019] the pains with them; but once aware of the sacrifice required, they cheerfully submitted to every species of persecution, and triumphed over all worldly feelings. And in every individual who receives Christianity, this struggle with worldly feelings must in some measure continue during their whole lives.