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| The Subsequent Influence of Christ's Death in the World Predicted. The Sure Mercies of David. What These are.
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Chapter XX.3371
| 3371 Comp. adv.
Judæos, 11 and 12. | —The Subsequent Influence of
Christ’s Death in the World Predicted. The Sure Mercies of David.
What These are.
It is sufficient for my purpose to have traced
thus far the course of Christ’s dispensation in these
particulars. This has proved Him to be such a one as prophecy announced
He should be, so that He ought not to be regarded in any other
character than that which prediction assigned to Him; and the result of
this agreement between the facts of His course and the Scriptures of
the Creator should be the restoration of belief in them from that
prejudice which has, by contributing to diversity of opinion, either
thrown doubt upon, or led to a denial of, a considerable part of them.
And now we go further and build up the superstructure of those kindred
events3372
out of the
Scriptures of the Creator which were predicted and destined to happen
after Christ. For the dispensation would not be found complete, if He
had not come after whom it had to run on its course.3373
Look at all nations from the vortex of human
error emerging out of it up to the Divine Creator, the Divine Christ,
and deny Him to be the object of prophecy, if you dare. At once
there will occur to you the Father’s promise in the Psalms:
“Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of me, and I
shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost
parts of the earth for Thy possession.”3374
You will not be able to put in a claim for some son of David being here
meant, rather than Christ; or for the ends of the earth being promised
to David, whose kingdom was confined to the Jewish nation simply,
rather than to Christ, who now embraces the whole world in the faith of
His gospel. So again He says by Isaiah: “I have given Thee for a
dispensation of the people, for a light of the Gentiles, to open the
eyes of the blind,” that is, those that be in error, “to
bring out the prisoners from the prison,” that is, to free them
from sin, “and from the prison-house,” that is, of death,
“those that sit in darkness”—even that of
ignorance.3375
If these things are
accomplished through Christ, they would not have been designed in
prophecy for any other than Him through whom they have their
accomplishment. In another passage He also says:
“Behold, I have set Him as a testimony to the nations, a prince
and commander to the nations; nations which know Thee not shall invoke
Thee, and peoples shall run together unto Thee.”3376
You will not interpret these words of David,
because He previously said, “I will make an everlasting covenant
with you, even the sure mercies of David.”3377
Indeed, you will be obliged from these words
all the more to understand that Christ is reckoned to spring from David
by carnal descent, by reason of His birth3378
| 3378 Censum. [Kaye, p.
149.] | of
the Virgin Mary. Touching this promise of Him, there is the oath to
David in the psalm, “Of the fruit of thy body3379
will I set upon thy throne.”3380
What body is meant? David’s own?
Certainly not. For David was not to give birth to a son.3381
| 3381 He treats
“body” as here meaning womb. | Nor his wife’s either. For instead of
saying, “Of the fruit of thy body,” he would then have
rather said, “Of the fruit of thy wife’s body.” But
by mentioning his3382
body, it follows
that He pointed to some one of his race of whose body the flesh of
Christ was to be the fruit, which bloomed forth from3383
Mary’s womb. He named the fruit of the
body (womb) alone, because it was peculiarly fruit of the womb, of the
womb only in fact, and not of the husband also; and he refers the womb
(body) to David, as to the chief of the race and father of the family.
Because it could not consist with a virgin’s condition to consort
her with a husband,3384
He therefore
attributed the body (womb) to the father. That new dispensation, then, which is
found in Christ now, will prove to be what the Creator then promised
under the appellation of “the sure mercies of David,” which
were Christ’s, inasmuch as Christ sprang from David, or rather
His very flesh itself was David’s “sure mercies,”
consecrated by religion, and “sure” after its resurrection.
Accordingly the prophet Nathan, in the first of Kings,3385
| 3385 The four books
of the Kings were sometimes regarded as two, “the
first” of which contained 1 and 2 Samuel, “the
second” 1 and 2 Kings. The reference in this place
is to 2 Samuel vii.
12. | makes a promise to David for his seed,
“which shall proceed,” says he, “out of thy
bowels.”3386
| 3386 He here again
makes bowels synonymous with womb. | Now, if you explain
this simply of Solomon, you will send me into a fit of laughter.
For David will evidently have brought forth Solomon! But is not Christ
here designated the seed of David, as of that womb which was derived
from David, that is, Mary’s? Now, because Christ rather than any
other3387
was to build the temple of God, that is to
say, a holy manhood, wherein God’s Spirit might dwell as in a
better temple, Christ rather than David’s son Solomon was to be
looked for as3388
the Son of God.
Then, again, the throne for ever with the kingdom for ever is more
suited to Christ than to Solomon, a mere temporal king. From Christ,
too, God’s mercy did not depart, whereas on Solomon even
God’s anger alighted, after his luxury and idolatry. For
Satan3389
| 3389 In
1 Kings xi. 14,
“the Lord” is said to have done
this. Comp.
2 Sam. xxiv. 1
with 1 Chron. xxi. i.
|
stirred up an Edomite as an enemy against
him. Since, therefore, nothing of these things is compatible with
Solomon, but only with Christ, the method of our interpretations will
certainly be true; and the very issue of the facts shows that they were
clearly predicted of Christ. And so in Him we shall have “the
sure mercies of David.” Him, not David, has God appointed
for a testimony to the nations; Him, for a prince and commander
to the nations, not David, who ruled over Israel alone. It is Christ
whom all nations now invoke, which knew Him not; Christ to whom all
races now betake themselves, whom they were ignorant of before. It is
impossible that that should be said to be future, which you see (daily)
coming to pass.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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