CHAPTER XXIV.

OUR SAVIOUR'S GIFT OF PROPHECY.

THE question of prophecy is intimately connected with the Scriptures, and any attempt to explain the Gospels must be incomplete unless it should treat this subject fully and fairly.

1. A prophecy may be merely a message or a simple communication in relation to some future event, as, e. g. (1 Kings xxi. 17 – 19) : "And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab, king of Israel, . . . . . saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine." The interpretation of dreams (Gen. xl. 8 – 23 ; Dan. ii. 31–45), the message to Cornelius (Acts x. 1 – 8), and the message to Peter in the same chapter are instances of this.

2. An impression in regard to the future may be made. upon the mind, so as to act upon it with a mysterious power. Some insects are endowed with a prophetic instinct, by which they provide for the preservation and support of their offspring which are to be born after their death. We find this sort of blind but prophetic instinct having a marked influence in forming the minds and shaping the destiny of extraordinary men, such as Julius Cæsar, Lord Bacon, Oliver Cromwell, and Napoleon. As in the heart of the plant and insect, so in the heart of man, it would seem as if there had been sometimes implanted from his earliest years a propelling power urging him on, he hardly knows how or why, to the

work for which Providence has designed him. Do we not see something of this kind working in the heart of a nation? In Rome, e. g., did not this prophetic conviction of the great national destiny which lay before them nerve the people with a sterner fortitude under defeat, and prompt them to more daring enterprises, and thus help them to accomplish the designs of Providence? Or is this an idea attributed to them by later writers in describing the deeds of their ancestors, after the imperial grandeur of the nation had become an historical fact? The history of the Jewish nation furnishes a remarkable instance of the same kind. From the time of Abraham onward through all their individual and national reverses, they were led on by an indefinite but certain assurance of future greatness and glory. This impression, repeatedly renewed, was continued from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to David, from David on his throne, through a succession of prophets, to Daniel an exile and captive. Whatever may be thought of specific prophecies, this expectation of a destiny beyond what had fallen to the lot of any other people has followed them from the earliest times recorded. in their history down to the present hour. However indistinct their expectations may have been, however mistaken the interpretation which they have put upon it, and however misguided their conduct under it, that such an expectation has existed among them for thousands of years is a fact which can hardly be called in question by any intelligent and careful student of history. As we examine their records, we find notices of great men rising up from age to age, who, professing to be moved by a divine inspiration, foreshadowed sometimes more and sometimes less distinctly the coming of a most extraordinary person, whose influence should be felt throughout the whole world. Abraham is told (Gen. xviii. 18) that "all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him." Moses (Deut. xviii. 18) says, "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken."

Sometimes he is described as a conqueror (Ps. cx.), sometimes as the Prince of peace (Isa. ix. 6), under whose mild and powerful reign (Isa. ii. 4) "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." He shall be endowed with a divine wisdom, authority, and strength (Isa. xi. 2-10) to uphold the poor and meek. "By him the eyes of the blind (Isa. xxxv. 5, 6) shall be opened, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing," and yet he is to be (Isa. liii.) a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, pouring out his soul unto death. These and other visions of future greatness and power, many of them conflicting with the prevailing notions of the times when they appeared, were given from generation to generation, especially when times of great national corruption were about to be followed by their just retribution. Through the darkness of the impending evils announced as the judgments of God there comes always this light of promise from beyond. This is a most. remarkable feature running through all the prophetic writings. However severe the calamities which are announced, whatever desolation of fire and sword may fall upon the land, though the whole remnant of the people should be carried away into captivity, there is still a great and glorious future. We think no one can read even the minor prophets without recognizing this extraordinary feature in their predictions. Whether we call them seers or poets, whether we regard them as moral teachers or inspired prophets, this feature still remains in their writings, and it marked the conduct of their greatest men in the most hopeless periods of their history. The writers, even though they were divinely inspired prophets, may not themselves have comprehended in full the character of the deliverer or of the era whose coming they foretold. John the Baptist, whom Jesus declared (xi. 11) not inferior to the greatest of them all, evidently did not fully understand the Saviour, or the nature of his kingdom. Daniel, after one of his sublime prophecies, says (Dan. xii. 8, 9), “ And I heard, but I understood not; then

said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things. And he said, Go thy way, Daniel; for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end." This sort of impression in regard to future events, made upon the mind and bodied forth in words or images through a divine influence, is a mode of prophecy which we can easily conceive of as possible.

3. There may be another and still higher form of prophecy. Future events are folded up in the present as in a seed. The oak is already in the acorn, the bird in the egg, the man in the child. From the seed the naturalist to a certain extent foretells what will be the progress of the plant, through each successive period of its growth. So to some extent in human affairs, from our knowledge of men and the influences which act upon them, i. e. from our knowledge of causes and the habit of following those causes on in their ' workings, till we begin to understand the laws of succession or of progress, we may learn to anticipate events, and to catch some glimpses of the future in the present. In proportion to the completeness of our insight into causes, and the laws of their progress in any particular sphere of activity, will be our ability to foresee and foretell future events,

"Till old experience do attain

To something like prophetic strain."

If we suppose a mind divinely quickened in this respect so as to look at a glance through causes to their immediate or remote results, and determine with certainty the course of events in the complicated web of human affairs, we should have an instance of this third and highest form of prophecy. It is the way in which all future events lie open to the Omniscient Mind.

Now this is the form under which our Saviour's prophetic endowments manifested themselves in perfect harmony with all the other manifestations of his greatness. We have seen above (pp. 128-135) that his miracles were "his works," as natural and easy to him as our ordinary

actions are to us. In his views of death (see above, pp. 174, 175) we have seen him, in the plane of his ordinary thought, recognizing the existence of a higher world, which lay as much open to his spiritual insight as the material world does to our bodily senses. So from time to time he foretells future events, not as something specially communicated to him, but as lying within the plane of his ordinary thought. As, from his knowledge of the laws of nature, to use his own illustrations, he foresaw that a cloud from the west would bring rain, that a south wind would be followed by heat, and that when the fig-tree put forth her leaves the summer would be nigh, so also from "the signs of the times" he foresaw future events. From his knowledge of the laws of the moral universe, and his insight into the condition of society and the souls of men, he saw in the world of human passions and interests, and the influences. which encompassed them, unerring indications of events which must ensue. In the souls of Peter and Judas he foresaw the denial and repentance of one, and the treachery of the other. In the character of priests and rulers, as contrasted with his own pure doctrine and life, he foresaw the antagonism which could result only in his death. So at this time he saw the utter and irremediable corruption of the nation, justice poisoned at the fountain, wickedness sustained and honored under the forms of law, falsehood, murder, impiety and all uncleanness disguised and reverenced under the forms of religion, the people rapidly ripening for judgment in the accumulated guilt of ages. The crimes enumerated in the twenty-third chapter are the premises from which the judgments afterwards announced follow as necessary and logical conclusions.

Those judgments consist in the destruction of Jerusalem and the retributions which lie beyond the sphere of the senses. The rapidity with which Jesus passes from one to the other class of judgments is what makes the difficulty in the interpretation of this prophetic discourse.