"REVO

EVOLUTION and Messianism destroyed the national existence of the Jewish people; but Revolution and Messianism were not the less that people's calling, the contribution which it made to the universal work of civilization."

RENAN.-Rome and Christianity - Hibbert Lectures, 113.

"We want progress, and shall not rest until we have divested Judaism of all its disfiguring rites and placed it upon that height on which we may hope we shall one day feel the brotherly grasp of all those who gladly inscribe their names unto the Only One of Israel, because they have felt and seen that God is with us." RABBI KOHLER.

"It is the most enduring people of the earth; it is, it was, it will be." GOETHE.

"Israel vanishes only to live on immortally in the better community, expanded into a Divine home for all humanity, and enriched by all the possessions that had ever been won.” EWALD.-Revelation, its Nature and Record, 256.

"The person of Jesus Christ is not the last shoot of the Israelitish nationality, but the completion of the Revelation of God which underlies its history." H. J. BESTMAN.

The Messiah-Idea: the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

I want you, my friends, to think with me for a little while this morning on CHRIST, not as He appears in the writings of the Old and New Testaments, the theme of prophet and evangelist alike; but mainly as He is to be traced in the actual every-day experience of the ancient Hebrews, forming the real heart of their conscious and unconscious yearnings, the vital centre of their imperishable ideas, the undying might of their hopes, and the staying-power of their unique and invincible patience.

I. You are all familiar with the curious and interesting processes by which we trace the MESSIAH-IDEA from page to page of the numerous and widely-separated books of the Bible, as we follow the devious windings of the golden thread of prophecy that runs through the brilliant and beautiful tapestry of Hebrew literature until we see the

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THE MESSIAH-IDEA ·

Divine Figure clearly before us; or watch the star of Redemption, shining now dimly, and now with mid-day splendours, out of the obscurities and hopes, the faiths and labours of the institutions and events, oracles and poems, battles and marches, of forty centuries, until it appears as the Sun of Righteousness, ascending into the heavens of Hebrew life, and flooding the world with healing and salvation.

He, massive as was his energy, rejoiced in the

But all Inspiration and Revelation are in men before they find their way on to parchments; in souls stirred and quickened by the Great Soul of all, before they can be written in books, embodied in institutes, or graven in the rocks for ever. "Abraham," Christ Himself said, “saw My day, and was glad." His eye discerned the one, faroff, Divine event, towards which the whole creation moves, and he trod the lonely steeps of faith with firmer foot and serener spirit by reason of the sight. "Moses wrote of Me," says the same authority. strength, and conquering his anticipated arrival of One, akin to himself in spirit and functions, Who should take up his unfinished task and advance it towards its predestined goal. The prophets themselves beheld the Star of God rise on the dark night of their troubled life, and felt all the exhilaration of the Revelation before they painted the thrilling panorama of the future for the solace and hope of their despondent compatriots. Therefore it is necessary to make a strenuous effort, by means of the Biblical Books, to think ourselves out of the books into the real thought and heart of the ancient people of God, so that we may see the great MessiahIdea as it is born and grows, enlarges and fructifies in their

IN THE LIFE OF THE WORLD. 349

life, contributes essential elements to their character, fosters large conceptions of their mission, and nourishes faith and hope in the Living and Redeeming God.

II. But this Christ-Idea-which in its substance is that of Divine redemption for lost man, daily strength according to the fulness and variety of the daily need-is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and is pervasive not simply of the narrow and restricted race of Jews, but of the broad and wide-spreading life of humanity. It is in itself Eternal, though its manifestations exhibit every variety of obscurity and clearness, of severity and grace, of simplicity and complexity; and even when it has become the most convincing experience, it is still a hope; and notwithstanding it is the most solid and undeniable of facts, it is still the most inspiring of prophecies. Captive spirits in our own day find it their nourishing food not less than did the sons and daughters of the Exile, and aged saints lean on its strong support now exactly as they did nineteen centuries ago. For human life is essentially Messianic. What Edersheim says of the Jew is true of the entire race of man. "Their whole history," he writes, "is prophetic. It is not merely one or another special prediction that is Messianic; everything-every event and institution-is prophetic and Messianico-prophetic, and what we onesidedly call special predictions are only special points on which the golden light rests, and from which it is reflected. And it is in this sense that we understand and adopt the fundamental principle of the Synagogue, repeated in every variety of form, that every event in Israel's history, and every prophecy pointed

350 forward to the Messiah, and that every trait and fact of the past, whether of history or miracle, would be reenacted more fully, nay, in complete fulness, in the time of the Messiah."* For the Messiah-Idea is not of Hebraic origin; it is from God, and of God. It underlies the very existence, progress, and victory of the human race. It is involved in the fact of a Divine Father in the heavens and a beloved child on the earth at war with the wild forces of evil, and exposed to fearful hurt and loss in the conflict; and, therefore, it appears before the Jew is born, and at the very birth of human history, in the promise made to Adam that the offspring of man shall be finally victorious in the combat waged with sin. The soft and cheering note of hope for man in God is struck from the harp in the hands of mortal man at the very beginning, and instead of bewailing the sinful past, the human singer is instructed, yea, I will say inspired, to anticipate a future of knowledge and victory, peace and blessing, through the foretold Representative and Leader of humanity. "Mercy thus rejoices against judgment" at the outset of human experience. Before men have felt the full bitterness of their wrong-doing, they are soothed and sustained by "the glorious Gospel of the happy God." Christ, as "the seed of the woman," appears as Conqueror of evil in and for mankind prior to his appearing as the seed of Abraham, and the source of blessing to the nations; or as the seed of David, and the glory and salvation of Israel. The idea is a fundamental fact lying

THE CHRIST OF GENESIS

• Prophecy and History in relation to the Messiah, by A. Edersheim, M.A. Oxon., D.D., pp. 130-1.