consubstantial, co-equal, and co-eternal.” It was this “Spirit of Christ” who inspired the prophets; for these “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
(i.) They sought the signification of the Spirit as to the Saviour’s person. “Searching what.” This expression is said to mean either what time; or what people; or what person. But looking at the whole passage it seems most naturally to refer to Him who is the subject of these predictions. They therefore diligently enquired as to who He was, of whom they, under inspiration, had been speaking.
(ii.) They also studied the prophecies as to the time of his coming: “What manner of time?” This phrase has a twofold application. It may refer to that particular period of the world’s history when the Saviour should come to endure his sufferings and enter into his glory. So Daniel reckoned up the number of the weeks, and sought to understand the time.
It may also have reference to “the character and condition of the age” when He should become incarnate. “What manner of time?”
We are now brought to the testimony itself which the Spirit beforehand gave.
(iii.) The Saviour’s sufferings, in their relation to our salvation. “The sufferings of Christ.”
We limit ourselves to two thoughts: these sufferings were predicted, and those predictions were fulfilled. Nearly the whole of the Old Testament has a connection with them. They are predicted by the very page which records the fall. “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Under the patriarchal economy there was a significant allusion to them in the offering up of Isaac. The Mosaic types were prophecies. The paschal lamb; the smitten rock; the brazen serpent; and the scape-goat on the day of expiation, exhibited this feature of Messiah’s character. Well nigh every page of the prophets is marked by blood and sorrow. The Psalmist, in thrilling tone, enquires, “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken Me?” And in the last struggles of death Jesus quoted the passage in its application to himself. The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is an unapproachable description of a suffering person. Its reference to Christ has been extorted from the Jew, and is confidently believed by every Christian. The notion of two Messiahs—the one suffering and the other conquering—is an unworthy subterfuge, and stands opposed to both fact and Scripture. Daniel is second only to Isaiah in his minute and
powerful description of the Redeemer’s sufferings. Zechariah almost closes the book by the startling cry, “Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered; and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.”
That these Scriptures have been fulfilled who can doubt that believes the gospels? Just before the Saviour’s ascension, and while yet partaking of the valedictory feast with his disciples, “He said unto them, these are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning Me. Then opened He their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day.” We pass by the pain and hunger and thirst which are the attributes of humanity; but from his very incarnation may it be said that his sufferings began. Mark the meanness of his birth; the poverty of his circumstances; the persecution which drove Him from his infant-home, and think of his manner of life prior to the public announcement of his character, and you say with the