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JOHN I. 27.

"He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose."

It was the duty of a slave, to carry the sandals of his lord, and to untie them when they were taken off." He who is represented by Malachi as first sending" my messenger," and then coming himself, is, the Lord; for him, therefore, the service rendered by a servant to a lord is far too small.

JOHN I. 31.

"And I knew him not; but that he should be manifested unto Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.”

The allusion to Is. xl. 5 is unmistakeable here,-a fresh proof of the knowledge possessed by John of the divinity of the Messiah. The design of his baptism, which was equivalent to the preparing of the way announced by Isaiah, the latter being a figurative description, the former a symbol (Verkörperung, lit. embodiment) of repentance, was to manifest the glory of the Lord, which was now concealed. This allusion is rendered the more certain by comparing the words in chap. ii. 11, "and manifested forth his glory." In the miracle of Christ recorded there, John perceived a fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah respecting the "manifestation of the glory of the Lord." As Christ is Jehovah, the manifestation of the glory of Christ necessarily involves a manifestation of the glory of Jehovah.

1 COR. XVI. 22.

If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema, Maran-atha."

The word Maran-atha, which is so striking in an epistle written in Greek and written to Greeks, is in itself a sufficient indication of an Old Testament foundation. The retention of the Aramean form can only be explained on the supposition, that

it was a kind of watchword, common to all the believers in Israel; and no expression could well have come to be so used, if it had not been taken from the Scriptures. There can hardly be any doubt, that it actually was taken from Mal. iii. 1. We have already shown that this passage was regarded as the basis of the anticipation of the coming of the Lord. And to this we may add that Tw ȧváleμa is evidently also taken from Malachi, namely, from chap. iv. 6, where there is a similar reference to coming. For the preparation of the way, and the turning of the hearts, mentioned by Malachi, the apostle substitutes love to the Lord Jesus. They both refer to the same thing, though in different relations. One cannot be conceived of without the other.

VOL. IV.

R

APPENDIX I.

IMPORTANCE OF THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES.

The term Messianic is derived from Ps. ii. 2, and Dan. ix. 25, 26, where the Redeemer is called, "anointed one." In the symbolical phraseology of the Scriptures, anointing represents the communication of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The kings of Israel, especially, were called anointed men; because they received a peculiarly abundant measure of the Spirit for their exalted office, whenever they opened their hearts to the grace of God. In Ps. lxxxiv. 10, and cxxxii. 10, 17, David is called the anointed of the Lord, with reference to the occurrence recorded in 1 Sam. xvi. 13, 14, where the figure is embodied in a symbolical action; and the whole family of David is similarly described in Ps. xviii. 51, lxxxix. 39, 52; Hab. iii. 13; and Lam. iv. 20. In the highest sense, however, this term was applied to Him in whom the family of David reached its culminating point, and who received the Holy Spirit without measure. (John iii. 34; compare Is. xi. 1).

When we observe that the Messianic announcements, which are peculiar to Israel alone, have their origin in the primeval age, that for many successive centuries they continue to reappear again and again, that they do not occur merely incidentally and in an isolated form, in the midst of other prophecies, but constitute the very centre and soul of all prophecy, that they stand out in great prominence even in the Psalms, in which utterance is given to the living faith of the people of God, under the quickening influence of the law and the prophets, we cannot for a moment doubt, that to the people of the ancient covenant the anticipation of a Messiah must have been one of all-absorbing importance.

1. The members of the ancient covenant were in imminent danger of looking merely at the present, and indulging, in consequence, a spirit of narrow-minded exclusiveness, which could not fail to lead to the most disastrous results. It led them, on the one hand, to form low and unworthy conceptions of God, and to detract from either his love or his power (for if the God of Israel were to be regarded as nothing more than this, he would cease to be God altogether); and, on the other, to form extremely pernicious ideas of their own merits, since it was very natural that, supposing the pre-eminence of Israel above the heathen nations to be permanent in its character, they should trace it to a certain innate superiority, which rendered them more worthy than any other to be the recipients of the grace of God. It was of the utmost importance, therefore, for the maintenance of a living faith in Israel, that its view should be directed beyond the preparatory institutions to the ultimate issue, in order that the means should be fully recognised as means and nothing more. Hence, even before the establishment of the Old Testament economy, it was distinctly announced, and after its establishment the fact was again impressed upon the minds of the people, that the peculiar relation in which God stood to Israel was merely a temporary one; that the day would come when the Redeemer and King of the whole world would appear; and that, until the time of his appearance, the form assumed by the kingdom of God was merely provisional. necessity for this announcement is especially obvious when we observe how, notwithstanding these lucid prophecies, the greater portion of the Jews were blinded by a carnal mind, and were the victims of the most disastrous exclusiveness.

The

2. The announcement of the Messiah was one of the means employed to maintain the fidelity of the nation towards the Lord in the midst of troublous circumstances. Proclaimed by the different messengers sent by God with the confidence produced by the Holy Ghost, depicted in the most glowing colours, and brought, as it were, from the future into the present, the Messiah became more and more the banner, around which all the downcast, the spiritually downcast of Judah and the dispersed of Israel, collected together. Thus, for example, in Is. vii. 14, the image of Immanuel is placed before the eyes of the nation,

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