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of God under the Old Testament would ever have permitted. But this perfect condescension on the part of God to fallen man was the indispensable condition of the deification of the latter; and this alone could render possible the perfect fulfilment of the Old Testament command, "thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength."

APPENDIX IV.

THE SUFFERING AND ATONING CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.

The question, whether there is any reference in the prophecies of the Old Testament to a suffering and dying Messiah in general, or to his vicarious suffering and death in particular, has received from rationalism a most decided and negative reply.1 The Israelites are represented as having expected simply a glorious king, who would bring all the enemies of the covenantnation into subjection to it, and exalt it to universal dominion. The actuating motive in this case has been a wish to represent the idea of a Messiah, as being purely the product of natural inclination and of the national spirit of the Jews. It also served to remove the difficulties which lay in the way of the rationalists, arising out of the miraculous agreement between prophecy and its fulfilment.

There can be no doubt whatever that such a view as this is opposed to the authority of the Lord and his apostles. There are numerous passages, in which they at once assume, that the Old Testament foretels a suffering Christ. In Matt. xxvi. 24 the Lord says: "the Son of Man goeth as it is written of him;" that is to say, there is no cause for astonishment, in the fact that the Messiah suffers and dies, for you may see from the circumstance that the Old Testament prophecies predicted this long ago, that it forms a necessary part of his mission. In Matt. xxvi. 54 the Lord points out to Peter the folly of his conduct, on the ground that, if he chose to employ them, he had forces at command of a very different kind, and that the reason for his not

1 Compare the commentaries on Is. liii. but more especially De Wette, de morte J. Chr. expiatoria, Berlin 1813, p. 13 sqq., and Baumgarten-Crusius bibl. Theol. p. 419.

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employing them was simply, that the Scriptures, which could not be broken, predicted his suffering and death: "how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" And again, in ver. 56 be anticipates the conclusion, which his enemies might draw to his prejudice from his utter humiliation, by the repeated declaration, that he is not without sufficient power to withstand them, but gives himself willingly into their hands, that the predictions of the Scriptures concerning his sufferings and death may be fulfilled.' In Luke xviii. 31, during his last journey to Jerusalem, Christ announces to the apostles, that everything which the prophets have foretold respecting his suffering and death is now about to be fulfilled. According to Luke xxii. 22, "the Son of Man goeth as it was determined," ie. in accordance with the predetermination of God, as declared in the prophecies of the Old Testament. In Luke xxii. 37, the Saviour says that the prophecies relating to his sufferings are about to be fulfilled, and that, in direct agreement with prophecy, he must be reckoned among the transgressors (compare Mark xv. 28). In Luke xxiv. 25-27, where Christ is addressing the two disciples, who are on their way to Emmaus, overwhelmed with grief and amazement at his death, he says to them, "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory ?" He then expounds to them the principal prophecies of the Old Testament, relating to himself, and especially those in which his sufferings are foretold. In Luke xxiv. 44-46, he says to the apostles, after his resurrection, that what he told them before his death, namely, that all the prophecies of the Old Testament concerning himself must be fulfilled, has now taken place. Upon this he opens their understanding that they may understand the Scriptures, makes known to them, as he had also done before his death, the

1 That the words, "all this was done, that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled," belong to Christ and not to the Evangelist, is evident from Mark xiv. 49, "but the Scriptures must be fulfilled."

2 Vid. Matt. xvi. 21, "from that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and scribes, and be killed." The Lord proved the necessity for his sufferings and death from the prophecies of the Old Testament, which could not remain unfulfilled, without imperilling the honour of the God that cannot lie. That this is the meaning of dei (Benge', quia

meaning of those passages, in which the suffering and death of the Messiah are foretold, and says to them, "thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day." In Acts iii. 18, Peter says, "those things, which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled." Precisely the same sentiment is expressed in 1 Pet. i. 11, the spirit of Christ in the prophets foretold the sufferings, which would be endured by Christ, and the glory that would follow. In Acts xvii. 3, Paul is said to have reasoned in the synagogue at Thessalonica, adducing from the Scriptures of the Old Testament the proofs that Christ must suffer and rise from the dead; and it is very evident from Acts xxvi. 22, 23, that this was his usual method of instruction, that he was accustomed to draw from the writings of the prophets the proof that the Messiah was Tаonтós, capable of suffering, and that instead of suffering being opposed to his nature, as the Jews maintained, it was rather a necessity of his nature. In 1 Cor. xv. 3 Paul distinctly affirms, that one of the leading points, in which he had instructed the Corinthians, was that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. And according to Acts viii. 35, Philip interpreted the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah as a prophecy of the sufferings and atonement of Christ.

At the same time it is possible to deny, with a certain plausibility, that any of these passages have the force of proof. In general it must be admitted that Tholuck is correct, when he says, "The typical view of the Old Testament has far greater predominance in the discourses of the Redeemer than is generally admitted. He regards the Old Testament, with its institutions and history and in certain of its utterances, as preeminently typical." A characteristic specimen of this typical mode of treatment we find in Mark ix. 13: "But I say unto you that Elias is indeed come, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him," where the history of Elias is regarded simply as prophetic of John the Baptist. In addition

praedictum erat), is evident from the parallel passages, chap. xxvi. 54—56, Luke xxiv. 25, and others. The prophecy, again, was under a still higher law of necessity.

1 Das Alte Testament im Neuen Testamente, Ed. iii. p. 28.

to this, among the single passages, which are referred to the suffering Christ, there are several, in which indisputably there is not a direct and exclusive allusion to the Messiah. Compare, for example, the reference to Psalm lxix. 22, in Matt. xxvii. 34, Mark xv. 23, and John xix. 28, where the Lord is represented as saying, "I thirst," in order that this passage from the Psalms might be fulfilled, although it does not refer directly to him, but to the righteous sufferer in general. See, also, John xiii. 18, where the Lord treats the 41st Psalm, the subject of which is also the righteous sufferer, as a prophecy of the treachery of Judas, because the general idea embodied in the Psalm necessarily embraced this particular fact. Such an admission, however, appears to take away the right to maintain, that the Lord and his apostles regarded the passages quoted, as containing direct Messianic utterances. Moreover, we find Moses mentioned along with the prophets in Luke xxiv. 27, and Acts xxvi. 22, 23, and it is universally admitted that in the former there is no direct announcement of a suffering Christ. Lastly, not only the sufferings and death, but the resurrection of Christ is also traced to the writings of the prophets, in which no direct allusion to that event can be found.

But these reasons are not conclusive. If it must be admitted, that, according to the representations of Jesus, all the types point to his sufferings; the same feature must have characterised the direct Messianic prophecies, in which the figure is so fully carried out, and the Lord and his apostles must therefore have found certain distinct passages in which the announcement was made.

At the same time, such is the confidence and emphasis, with which the Old Testament is appealed to as asserting the sufferings of Christ, that we must not stop at the types alone; but on the contrary there must be the germ of a direct prediction of a suffering Messiah, around which the rest are simply grouped. The result already obtained is confirmed by an examination

1 The quotations from Ps. xxii. are not so thoroughly in point as others, since there is a direct Messianic element in the Psalm, though not an exclusive reference to the Messiah, (compare my commentary on the Psalms, vol. ii.) There is a complete analogy, however, in Acts i. 16-20, where Peter finds the fate of Judas predicted in Ps. Ixix. and cix., two Psalms in which allusion is made, not specially and primarily to Judas, but to the righteous sufferer and his enemies.

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