IN TIME'S MERIDIAN
ARTICLE TWENTY.
The Lamb of God.
A stranger Star, that came from far,
To filing its silver ray
Where, cradled in a lowly cave,
A lowlier infant lay;
And led by soft sidereal light,
The Orient sages bring
Rare gifts of gold and frankincense,
To greet the homeless King.* * *
He wandered through the faithfulness world,
A Prince in shepherd guise;
He called his scattered flock, but few
The Voice did recognize;
For minds unborne by hollow pride,
Or dimmed by sordid lust,
Ne'er look for kings in beggar's garb,
For diamonds in the dust.* * *
Transfixt he hung—O crime of crimes!—
The God whom worlds adore.
"Father forgive them!" Drained the dregs;
Immanuel—no more.
No more where thunders shook the earth,
Where lightnings, 'thwart the gloom,
Saw that unconquered Spirit spurn
The shackles of the tomb.
Far-flaming falchion, sword of light,
Swift-flashing from its sheath,
It cleft the realms of darkness and
Dissolved the bands of death.
Hell's dungeons burst! Wide open swung
The everlasting bars,
Whereby the ransomed soul shall win
Those heights beyond the stars![[1]]
The Crucified and Crowned.—An attempt to tell, even in brief, the sublime story of the Christ, would be foreign to my present purpose, Even if space permitted, what pen could do justice to the theme? Suffice it that the Christ came, in the Meridian of Time, as ancient seers and prophets had foretold. Surrendering himself to to death, that there might be no more death, He arose from the grave and ascended on High, glorified with that glory which the Eternal Son had with the Eternal Father before this world was formed.
The Passover Realized.—In the Savior's crucifixion, the prophetic symbolism of the Passover had a most remarkable realization. In nothing was this more strikingly manifest than in certain incidents immediately following the Death on Calvary. The commandment instituting the Paschal Feast required that no bone of the lamb should be broken, and no fragment of it be left to decay, representing as it did the body of the Holy One, which was not "to see corruption."[[2]] Mark now the exact fulfillment: The Savior had been crucified between two thieves, and at sundown on the day of crucifixion the Jewish Sabbath began. In order that the day might not be "desecrated," the Rabbis prevailed upon the Roman governor to have the three bodies taken down from the crosses and buried.[[3]] When the soldiers went to remove the bodies, finding the two thieves still alive, they put an end to them by breaking their legs; but Jesus was spared this further indignity, he being "dead already."[[4]] Pierced with five wounds, yet not a bone of him broken, the Lamb of God, answering in every particular to the likeness of the paschal lamb, was laid in the rocky tomb, whence He came forth on the third day, his perfectly preserved tabernacle glorified in immortality.
The Lord's Supper.—The night before the Crucifixion, Jesus, having partaken of the Passover with his disciples, instituted in its stead the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, commanding them to observe it thenceforth.[[5]] The Supper, like the Feast, pointed to the Atonement; but in the Passover the pointing was forward to an even that had not yet occurred, while in the Supper, for the reverse reason, the indication is backward. It is said that the paschal lamb was offered in the Temple at Jerusalem about the same hour that Christ died; the substance and the shadow thus corresponding. Thereafter the Passover was obsolete, having fulfilled its purpose, and as the type no longer typified, it should have been discontinued. The Jews, however, perpetuated the old-time observance, not recognizing in Jesus their Messiah.
"It is Finished."—The Savior's dying words, as reported by the Beloved Disciple,[[6]] have been the subject of much controversy. "It is finished." What did those words signify? The notion has been entertained that Christ's crucifixion completed his work, so far as personal ministrations went, and that after the opening of the so-called Christian Dispensation, there was no further need of communication between God and man. "O most lame and impotent conclusion!" Whatever construction be placed upon that final utterance of our Lord's, it is perfectly clear, from what followed, that it never was intended to convey such a meaning.
Birth and Death Incidental.—The Death on Calvary was no more the ending, than the Birth at Bethlehem was the beginning, of that Divine Career. Both were mere incidents. The Savior's work is universal, extending from Eternity into Time, and back again into Eternity. All the Gospel dispensations, from Adam down to Joseph Smith, are parts of the all-embracing mission of Jesus Christ. Not until "the beginning of the seventh thousand years," the Morning of the Resurrection, "will the Lord God sanctify the earth and complete the salvation of man."[[7]] Moreover, sanctification will be succeeded by glorification, still another phase of the work of Him who bringeth to pass "the immortality and eternal life of man."
The Sacrifice Complete.—What, then, was "finished" by the Death on the Cross? Simply the pain and sorrow that the Son of God had willed to undergo, that He might ransom a lost creation, and make it possible for redeemed man, by faith and good works, to lay hold upon eternal life. The Savior's self-imposed humiliation, his voluntary sacrifice, his mysterious all-comprehensive suffering, the piled up agony of the human race, endured by him vicariously, to the end that his atonement might be infinite, reaching to every son and daughter of Adam[[8]]—this was finished, this was at an end; not the work of God, nor the continuous revelation of his word and will to man.