The uninspired evidence which completes the connexion of this place of Deuteronomy with the second Person in the Blessed Trinity, is the traditional interpretation assigned to it by the Hebrew Commentators. The Targum of Jerusalem expounds the latter clause as follows:—"Neither is the Law beyond the Great Sea, that thou shouldest say, O that we had one like Jonas the prophet that might go down to the bottom of the Great Sea, and bring it to us." So that the very Jewish Doctors themselves here become our instructors; and teach us that a greater than Jonas must be here,—even while they guide our eyes to that especial type of our Saviour Christ in His Descent into Hell, and Rising again from the dead. I say, the very Jewish Doctors themselves here contribute their testimony; and yield a most unsuspicious witness to the inspired exegesis of the Apostle: for, "as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly,"—so, (they clearly mean to say), so should it be with the man whom Moses here indicateth: and so,—(these are the words of Christ Himself),—so was "the Son of Man three days and three nights in the heart of the Earth[565]."
You will of course notice the facility with which the Jews themselves, interpreting their own Scriptures, have here exchanged the notions of going "over the sea,"—("beyond the sea," as it is in the Hebrew,)—and "going down to the bottom" of the sea. St. Paul seems, in this place, to have "accommodated" the words of Moses: but we cannot fail to perceive that the Hebrew text must cry aloud for such supposed "accommodation;" yea, cry aloud, even in the uncircumcised ears of the Jewish people; that their own Commentators, as if divinely guided by the good hand of God, should bear their own independent witness to the correctness of the Apostolic interpretation.
Nor may I fail to call your attention to the term employed by St. Paul to denote the Sea:—a term, surely divinely chosen. He had just before, (in the 6th and 7th verses,) employed the Version of the LXX: he was about to use it again in the 8th verse: but in this, (the 7th,) he departs from it. Instead of,— Τίς διαπέρασει ἡμῖν εἰς τὸ πέραν τῆς θαλάσσης; he writes,—Τίς καταβήσεται εἰς τὴν ἄβυσσον. The term ἄβυσσος,—which is applicable to the deep places of the Earth, and to the depth of the Sea, with equal propriety;—(being a more indifferent term even than our own expression "the deep");—affords a memorable example of the fulness and pregnancy of language on inspired lips. Adhering to the letter of the text he quotes, the Apostle, by changing the word expressive of that literal sense, embraces the whole spiritual breadth and fulness of the passage:—reminding us of Him, by the blood of whose covenant were sent forth the prisoners of hope out of the pit wherein is no water[566],—even before he names Him; our Saviour Christ!
I must also remind you, that there are many expressions used by our Lord, or used concerning Him by His Apostles, which help to shew, that, to have come down from Heaven,—and to have been brought up from the deep of the Earth again,—may be regarded as the mysterious summary of the Saviour's Mission[567].—"No man hath ascended up to Heaven," (saith our Lord,) "but He that came down from Heaven[568]." "I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven.... Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before[569]?" In another place,—"I came forth from the Father and am come into the World: again I leave the World, and go to the Father[570]."—But the most remarkable place remains: "Now, that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lowest parts of the Earth? He that descended, is the same also that ascended up far above all Heavens[571]." I say, this brief summary,—given by Christ Himself, or by those who had seen Him,—of the mystery of His manifestation in the flesh,—throws light on the language of the Hebrew lawgiver. It shews that the language of Moses to Israel, in the plains of Moab, fairly embraced the two great truths which Faith even now can but be exhorted to lay fast hold upon, and to appropriate:—"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth that Jesus is the Lord,"—that is, confess that the man Jesus is the uncreated, Incarnate Jehovah; "and believe with thy heart that God raised Him up from the dead,—thou shalt be saved." ... Such is the form which the exhortation now assumes. More darkly, of old time,—(as was fitting,)—was the same thing spoken: and, because reference was then made to an event not yet accomplished, the impatience of Unbelief is there repressed,—rather than the ardour of Faith stimulated. "Say not in thy heart who shall ascend into Heaven? or, who shall go down into the deep place?" ... But shall we deal so faithlessly with the Divine Oracles of the Old Testament, as to deny them the deeper meaning assigned to them in the New, because they speak darkly? Let us, from a review of all that has been humbly offered,—let us at least admit that there is good independent ground for believing that when Moses spake of ascending into Heaven,—it was with reference to the future coming of Christ:—when he made mention of descending into the Deep,—the Resurrection of the Saviour of the World was, in reality, the thing he spake of.—Let us allow that here, at least, there is nothing in the language of the New Testament, which, when studied by the light of unassisted Reason, does not appear to have been fully included, contemplated, intended by the language of the Old:—that the accommodation has not been arbitrary;—say rather, that here at least there has been no accommodation at all!
But I am impatient to leave this low rationalistic ground, and take my stand again, on the vantage ground of Faith. The position, I trust, has been established, that even in the case of words which seem least promising,—least likely to enfold the deeply mysterious meaning claimed for them by an Apostle,—the result of patient inquiry and research is to shew that such a meaning really does exist there, to the fullest extent. We have discovered, from mere grounds of Reason, apart from Revelation, that what St. Paul has cited in this place from Deuteronomy, may very well contain all that he says it contains. But, were nothing of the kind discoverable;—were it a most hopeless endeavour to reconcile the meaning evolved by the inspired Apostle, with the text he professes to interpret,—the claims of the sacred exegesis would remain wholly unimpaired. We should still say that this, because it is an inspired Commentary, is entitled to our fullest acceptance. We have, anyhow, the Holy Spirit interpreting Himself. He surely must be the best judge of His own Divine meaning. He does but enrich the Treasury of Truth, even by His apparent departures from the original Hebrew verity. Shall not the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, be allowed to speak comfort to His people in whatever way seemeth best to Himself? Is it not lawful for Him to do what He will with His own? Is thine eye evil, because He is very good?
Yes, it cannot be too emphatically insisted on, that the success which may attend investigations of this nature, is not to be admitted for a moment as the measure of the soundness of the principle on which they proceed. The reasoning whereby Newton shewed that the diamond is a combustible substance would have been no whit invalidated had the diamond resisted to this hour every chemical attempt to reduce it to carbon. We do not,—(what need to say?)—we do not discourage the endeavour to enucleate the deep Christian significancy of passages for which Inspired writers claim such sublime meaning. Rather do we think that Human Reason could not find a worthier field for the employment of her powers[572], than this. But we are strenuous to insist that the full and sufficient, and only irrefragable proof that a mighty Christian meaning does actually underlie the unpromising utterance of one of God's ancient Saints, is,—that an Inspired Writer declares it to exist there.
There is no accommodation therefore, when an inspired writer adduces Scripture. Human language will sometimes require to be "accommodated:" Divine language, never! May not the Holy Spirit lay His finger on whatever parts of His ancient utterance He sees fit? may He not invert clauses, and (in order to bring out His meaning better) even alter words? If He tells thee that the prophetic allusion of Isaiah to "our griefs" and "our sorrows" comprehends "our infirmities" and "our sicknesses" in its span[573],—is it for thee to discredit His assertion? If He is pleased to intimate that the providential arrangement whereby Christ, though born at Bethlehem, grew up at Nazareth,—had for its object the fulfilment of many a detached and seemingly disconnected prophecy[574],—shall the unexpectedness of His disclosure excite ridicule in such an one as thyself? When He tells thee that besides the immediate scope of certain well-known words of Hosea and of Jeremiah, there was the ulterior aim He indicates; if behind Israel after the flesh, He shews thee the Anointed Son[575],—if behind those captive Jews of the tribe of Benjamin whom Nebuzar-Adan led past their mother's grave on their way to Babylon, He points to the slaughtered infant of Bethlehem; assuring thee that when He spake by the mouth of Jeremiah concerning the nearer event that remoter one was full before Him also; and that the solemn and affecting utterance of the Prophet was divinely intended by Himself to cover both[576];—wilt thou, when He discourses to thee thus, presume to talk to Him of "accommodation?" Is it not enough for thee to have cavilled at the first page of the Old Testament on "scientific" grounds? Must thou, for Theological considerations, dispute the first page of the New Testament also?
Scripture then, whether in its Historical or its more obviously prophetic parts, has this depth of meaning for which I have been contending. We must perforce believe it, for it is a matter of express Revelation. We cannot pretend to deny the probability,—much less the possibility of it; for we really can know nothing of the matter except from an attentive study of Scripture itself. And the witness of Scripture, as we have seen, is ample, emphatic, and express.—Our Lord, being indignantly asked by the Jews if He heard what the children, crying in the Temple, said of Him,—made answer by quoting the 2nd verse of the viiith Psalm: "Yea, have ye never read, 'Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise'[577]?"—Pray was this "accommodation," or what was it? It was deemed a sufficient answer, at all events, by the Anointed Jehovah; whatever men may think!... When the Sadducees, disbelieving in the Resurrection of the Body, assailed our Lord with a speculative difficulty, He told them that they erred because they did not understand the Scriptures. "Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For He is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto Him[578]." How, by the popular method,—how, by any of the new lights which have lately been let in on Holy Scripture,—was the Resurrection of the dead to have been proved by the words which the Second Person in the Trinity spake to Moses "in the Bush?" And yet we behold that same Divine Personage in the days of His humiliation, proposing from those words, uttered by Himself 1500 years before, to establish the doctrine in dispute!... Only once more. "In the last day, that great day of the Feast [of Tabernacles,] Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that believeth on Me,—as the Scripture hath said, 'Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water[579]!'"—But where does the Scripture say that? You will look a long while to find it. You will never find it at all if you adhere to the method which of late has been declared to be the method most in fashion. You will never even understand what our Blessed Lord means, unless you attend to the hint which immediately follows,—and which the Divine Author of the Gospel would not surfer us to be without,—namely, that, "This spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive:"—by which is meant, that as many of the Prophets as discoursed in dark phrase of that free outpouring of the Spirit which was to mark Messiah's Reign, did, in effect, say the thing which He here attributes to them.
Inspired Reasoning, wherever found, may fitly obtain a few words of distinct notice here; but I shall perhaps speak more becomingly, as well as prove more intelligible, if,—(without further allusion to the sayings of that Almighty One "in whom are hid all the treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge[580];" sayings which it seems a species of impiety to approach except in adoration;)—I confine my remarks to the logical processes observable in the inspired writings of some of His servants, the Evangelists and Apostles of the Lamb.
The difficulty which has been occasionally felt in respect of the argumentative parts of St. Paul's Epistles, is considerable, and may not be overlooked. His definitions, his inferences, his entire method of handling Scripture, gives offence to a certain class of minds. His reasoning seems inconsequential. There appears to be a want of logical order and consistency in much that he delivers. But,—can it require to be stated?—the fault is entirely our own. "The radical fallacy of any attempt to analyze the reasoning of Scripture by the ordinary Laws of Logic" requires to be pointed out. And the root of it all is our assumption that an inspired Apostle must perforce argue like any other uninspired man.