Questions on Chapter 15.
verification of prophecy, as a demonstration to the world, through its successive ages, that the Bible is true. The mightiest achievements of human genius and power, the admiration of nations, and the “wonder of the world,” are made tributary to the divine behests; and whether in smoldering ruins or in dreary wastes they yet exist, or whether they have passed from earth away, leaving no trace behind — in either case, those ruins and those wastes, or the fact that none such exist, shall stand before the world as Heaven’s visible and abiding witness, that “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER 15.
QUESTION 1. What prophecy concerning Nineveh is quoted?
2. How is its fulfillment shown?
3. How long before the event had the overthrow of that city been predicted?
4. What reasons may be assigned for the fact that Babylon figures so largely in prophecy?
5. What prophets furnish the most of these predictions?
6. Enumerate some of the most striking, and show how they were fulfilled.
7. What travelers have described the ruins of Babylon, as foretold by prophecy?
8. For what was Tyre once remarkable?
9. What predictions are quoted concerning this city?
10. How is a seeming discrepancy in the prophecy explained?
11. What travelers are quoted concerning Tyre?
12. How were the predictions fulfilled, and what is the proof?
13. What remarkable characteristic had all these predictions? CHAPTER 16. — PROPHECIES IN RELATION TO
MESSIAH.
IN considering the prophecies respecting Messiah, we can but briefly glance at a few of the most important. Although the genuineness and authenticity of the Old Testament, containing these prophecies, have been sufficiently established in a preceding chapter; yet it may be proper here to remark that, in reference to the subject now before us, we have a pledge against the possibility of corruption or interpolation that does not apply so forcibly to any other portion of the Old Testament. This is furnished us by the fact that the Jews, the original and special guardians of these Scriptures, have still in their possession the same Old Testament which they profess to have received from the beginning; and this Jewish copy perfectly corresponds with that now in use among Christians. And as the Jews are known to have ever been the bitterest enemies of Christianity, we may be certain that they never would have changed any of those predictions concerning Messiah so as to favor the Christian cause. Could they have been tempted to undertake such a fraud, they unquestionably would have aimed at such alterations as would have made against instead of for Christianity, But while the facts just stated secure us against the possibility of any corruption of the record since the coming of Christ, the existence of the Septuagint version, and of the Samaritan copy of the Pentateuch, and various other considerations set forth in a former chapter, demonstrate that there could have been no fraudulent alterations made in these writings for centuries before.
We have every evidence, then, that the nature of the subject admits to satisfy us that all those predictions in the Old Testament, upon which Christians rely as pointing to Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, were written many ages before the coming of our Saviour.
The evidence of Christianity derived from this source maybe viewed in its application, either against the Jew or against the infidel. In the former case, if we can show that these predictions are fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, and never have been or can be fulfilled in any other person, the Jew will necessarily be compelled to admit the truth of Christianity; but in the controversy with infidelity more will be requisite. We must not only show that the prophecies are clearly fulfilled in Jesus Christ, but that they are such as could have proceeded from none but God. If these two points be established, then the truth of Christianity will be demonstrated. That the Jewish nation had for many centuries been looking forward to the advent of an illustrious Deliverer, or Messiah, and that this fact was known to the surrounding nations, cannot be disputed; but the question before us is, Was that Messiah clearly predicted? and were those predictions verified in the person and history of Jesus?
The predictions of the Old Testament relating to Messiah are exceedingly numerous. Beside types, many of which are remarkably plain and striking, and remote allusions, and figurative expressions, which evidently refer to Christ, though with a degree of indirectness, there are as many as a hundred passages making a plain and direct reference to him; any one of which, in its fulfillment, furnishes proof that it could only have proceeded from Omniscience. What, then, must be the weight of the testimony when all these evidences are combined?
The first intimation of a coming Messiah is found in a laconic sentence delivered almost immediately after the fall. It was there announced that the “seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent.” In this prediction is clearly foretold that unmitigated warfare between good and evil, light and darkness, holiness and sin — the kingdom of God on the one hand, and the kingdom of Satan on the other — which then commenced, and which in every age and in every part of the world has been perpetuated to the present day. We witness it in the crime of Cain and in the faith of Abel, in the preaching of Enoch and Noah and in the wickedness of the antediluvians, in the patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian dispensations, and in every age and everywhere, in the efforts of the bad to corrupt the good, and of the good to reform the bad. Now, we ask, who but Omniscience could, in the world’s infancy, have pictured so truthfully its history for all time to come?
This promise was afterward given in an enlarged form to Abraham: “I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” Genesis 22:17, 18. Here we see not only the numerous posterity of Abraham foretold, but also the fact that Messiah was to descend from him, and that all nations were to share the blessings of his reign.
We will now call attention to some of those prophecies of Messiah more specific in their character.
1. The TIME at which he was to appear was distinctly noted in prophecy: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come.” Genesis 49:10. In this passage one particular is fixed as to the time of Messiah’s advent. He was to come before the scepter had departed from Judah. Dr. Clarke thinks the true reading of this passage requires the word tribe instead scepter. If this be correct, then the meaning is, that Shiloh must appear before Judah shall cease to exist as a distinct tribe. And so he did — for this distinction of the tribes was not confounded and lost till the nationality of the Jews was destroyed by the Romans a short time after Christ. But let the word be taken as we have it in our version, “scepter,” and it may apply either to the political or ecclesiastical “scepter.” It is well known that the Romans at the time of our Saviour, though they had conquered and brought the Jews under tribute, did not interfere at all with their religious institutions; and as religion and politics in the Jewish economy were one united system, the Jews were still allowed, to a great extent, to govern themselves; so that when Jesus appeared, the “scepter” had not yet “departed from Judah nor a lawgiver from between his feet.” The Jewish kings were of the family of David, of the tribe of Judah, up to the time of the captivity; and afterward their governors, whether under the Persians, Greeks, or Romans, were continued in the same line. Indeed, when the ten tribes revolted, the tribe of Benjamin was blended with that of Judah; by it the authority of the nation was ever wielded — from it the nation took its name.
The principal members of their Sanhedrim and their chief rulers, though their dominion was sometimes interrupted by foreign interference, always belonged to the tribe of Judah. Thus we see that up to the coming of Jesus the “scepter,” in an important sense, was retained by “Judah,” and a “lawgiver from between his feet,” was recognized. But very soon after that period that “scepter” and “lawgiver” departed; and, in the necessity of the case, must have departed forever — for their tribes have been confounded, and their nationality destroyed for many centuries. The “scepter” has “departed from Judah,” and “Shiloh” has “come.” Let the wandering and commingled tribes read this prophecy, and believe in Jesus. Again, the Prophet Daniel, about six hundred years before Christ foretold the very year in which he should suffer death. His words are: “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy; and to anoint the Most Holy.” Daniel 9:24. Agreeably to the unanimous opinion of the learned in Scripture prophecy, weeks are to be computed according to the Jewish mode of reckoning Sabbatic years, counting each week as a week of years. Hence, the “seventy weeks” of Daniel amount to just four hundred and ninety years. Dr. Clarke remarks that “most learned men agree that the death of Christ happened at the Passover, in the month Nisan, in the four thousand seven hundred and forty sixth year of the Julian period. Four hundred and ninety years, reckoned back from the above year, leads us directly to the month Nisan in the four thousand two hundred and fifty-sixth year of the same period — the very month and year in which Ezra had his commission from Artaxerxes Longimanus, king of Persia (see Ezra 7:9), to restore and rebuild Jerusalem.”
Again, the PLACE in which the Messiah should be born had been named in prophecy. “But thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be Ruler in Israel.” Micah 5:2.
Isaiah predicted the miraculous works of Messiah. “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing.” Read the history of Jesus in the writings of the evangelists; and see how literal the fulfillment.
Once more, in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah there are found so many minute facts in reference to the character, life, and death, of Messiah, which are all so literally fulfilled in the history of Jesus that it is quite impossible to account for the wonderful coincidences, except upon the supposition that the prophecy was written after the crucifixion of Jesus, or that it was dictated by divine inspiration. That the former supposition cannot be true, we have already shown beyond the possibility of a reasonable doubt; and that the latter must be true, we are compelled to believe, or discard the dictates of common sense.
But let us look at some of these minutely descriptive items. Messiah was to be manifested in a low and humble condition: “He hath no form nor comeliness, and no beauty that we should desire him.” He was to be treated with contempt: He was despised and rejected of men … we esteemed him not.” He was to be a man of great grief and sorrow: “A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and we hid, as it were, our faces from him.” He was to suffer for others: “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows… He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.” He was to be meek and submissive amid his sufferings: “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.” He was to be harmless and blameless in his life: “He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.” He was to be put to death under circumstances of ignominy: “He was numbered with the transgressors.” He was to be honored in his burial: He was “with the rich in his death.” He was to intercede for others: “He made intercession for the transgressors.”
It is impossible for any one to read this life-like picture of the Messiah, and compare it with the history of Jesus as portrayed by the evangelists, without being impressed with the conviction that the one is the exact similitude of the other. No painter ever drew a picture more like the original than is this description of Isaiah like the reality we behold in the life and death of Jesus. As we read the prophet’s simple and pathetic statements, we can almost see the blessed Saviour as looking down upon Jerusalem he “wept over it,” or as standing at the tomb of Lazarus he mingled his tears with those of Martha and Mary, or when he came near the final tragedy as he stood first before Caiaphas, then before Pilate, next before Herod, then again before Pilate, and lastly on the Mount of Crucifixion. In all the scenes here exhibited we see the exact pencilings of the prophet, only that the lines are more distinct and the colors more vivid. Who can contemplate these glowing prophecies, and mark the exact accomplishment in every particular, and fail to recognize the hand of God? Isaiah wrote nearly six hundred years before Jesus was born, yet he describes his character as though every scene in his history were then before his eyes. Is this the result of mere human foresight? Can it be the achievement of chance? And how can we account for the fact, that of all the thousands of the descendants of Abraham these predictions are all fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, and in him alone? Surely he is the Messiah, and the Bible is true!
Numerous other minute circumstances concerning Messiah were predicted in the Old Testament, a few of which we here mention. He was to be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14). He was to come in the spirit and power of Elijah (Malachi 3:1, 4, 5). He was to be a prophet (Deuteronomy 17:15-18). He was to enter Jerusalem riding upon an ass (Zechariah 9:9). He was to be betrayed and sold for thirty pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12). With his price the potter’s field was to be bought (Zechariah 11:13). That vinegar and gall should be given him in his thirst, and lots cast for his vesture (Psalm 22:18). That not a bone of him should be broken (Psalm 34:20). That his side should be pierced (Zechariah 12:10). That he should teach in parables (Psalm 78:2). How remarkably and exactly all these predictions were fulfilled in Jesus, we need not show: the New Testament reader is familiar with the facts. How shall we account for these minute predictions, and their exact fulfillment? “There is no possible means of evading the evidence of the fulfillment of these predictions in the person of our Lord, unless it could be shown that Jesus and his disciples, by some kind of concert, made the events of his life and death to correspond with the prophecies, in order to substantiate his claim to the Messiahship. No infidel has ever been so absurd as to hazard this opinion, except Lord Bolingbroke; and his observations may be taken as a most triumphant proof of the force of this evidence from prophecy, when an hypothesis so extravagant was resorted to by an acute mind in order to evade it. This noble writer asserts that Jesus Christ brought on his own death by a series of willful and preconcerted measures, merely to give his disciples the triumph of an appeal to the old prophecies. But this hypothesis does not reach the case; and to have succeeded, he ought to have shown that our Lord preconcerted his descent from David, his being born of a virgin, his birth at Bethlehem, and his wonderful endowments of eloquence and wisdom; that, by some means or other, he willfully made the Jews ungrateful to him, who healed their sick and cleansed their lepers; and that he not only contrived his own death, but his resurrection and his ascension also, and the spread of his religion in opposition to human opinion and human power, in order to give his disciples the triumph of an appeal to the prophecies! These subterfuges of infidels concede the point, and show that the truth cannot be denied but by doing the utmost violence to the understanding.” (Watson’s Institutes.)
We close our remarks on the prophecies of the Old Testament in the language of Bishop Hurd:
“1. That prophecy is of a prodigious extent — that it commenced from the fall of man, and reaches to the consummation of all things; that for many ages it was delivered darkly to few persons, and with large intervals from the date of one prophecy to that of another, but at length became more clear, more frequent, and was uniformly carried on in the line of one people, separated from the rest of the world, among other reasons assigned for this, principally to be the repository of the divine oracles; that, with some intermission, the spirit of prophecy subsisted among that people to the coming of Christ; that he himself, and his apostles, exercised this power in the most conspicuous manner, and left behind them many predictions recorded in the books of the New Testament, which profess to respect very distant events, and even run out to the end of time, or, in St. John’s expression, to that period when the mystery of God shall be perfected (Revelation 10:7).
“2. Farther, besides the extent of this prophetic scheme, the dignity of the person whom it concerns deserves our consideration, He is described in terms which excite the most august and magnificent ideas. He is spoken of, indeed, sometimes as being the seed of the woman, and as the Son of man, yet so as being at the same time of more than mortal extraction. He is even represented to us as being superior to men and angels — as far above all principality and power, above all that is accounted great, whether in heaven or in earth — as the word and wisdom of God — as the eternal Son of the Father — as the heir of all things, by whom he made the world — as the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person. We have no words to denote greater ideas than these: the mind of man cannot elevate itself to nobler conceptions. Of such transcendent worth and excellence is that Jesus said to be to whom all the prophets bear witness.
“3. Lastly, the declared purpose for which the Messiah, prefigured by so long a train of prophecy, came into the world corresponds to all the rest of the representation. It was not to deliver an oppressed nation from civil tyranny, or to erect a great civil empire, that is to achieve one of those acts which history counts most heroic. No; it was not a mighty state, a victor people — ’Non res Romanæ perituraque regna’ — that was worthy to enter into the contemplation of this divine person. It was another and far sublimer purpose which he came to accomplish — a purpose in comparison of which all our policies are poor and little, and all the performances of man as nothing. It was to deliver a world from ruin — to abolish sin and death — to purify and immortalize human nature; and thus, in the most exalted sense of the words, to be the Saviour of all men and the blessing of all nations. There is no exaggeration in this account. I deliver the undoubted sense, if not always the very words, of Scripture. Consider, then, to what this representation amounts. Let us unite the several parts of it and bring them to a point. A spirit of prophecy pervading all time, characterizing one person of the highest dignity, and proclaiming the accomplishment of one purpose, the most beneficent, the most divine, that imagination itself can project, Such is the scriptural delineation, whether we will receive it or no, of that economy which we call prophetic.”
A brief reference to some of the predictions of our Saviour will close this chapter, and all we intend to present on the evidence of prophecy. Our blessed Saviour several times foretold to his disciples his own death, with several of the accompanying circumstances: that it should occur at Jerusalem — that the chief priests and scribes should arrest and arraign him, but deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked, scourged, and crucified — that Judas should betray him. Peter deny him, and all the disciples forsake him.
Again, he very emphatically predicted his resurrection on the third day. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, which was so abundantly established in a preceding chapter, is a very important fact in connection with the evidences of Christianity. It is a double testimony, either division of which, taken by itself, would be irresistibly conclusive on the question, but when both are taken together, assurance is rendered doubly sure. In the first place, the resurrection of Christ from the dead, had he never foretold it at all, furnishes the most indubitable evidence of the truth of his religion; in the second place, the fact that his resurrection had been plainly predicted by himself, and that it took place at the time and as he had predicted, demonstrates the divinity of his mission on the ground of the fulfillment of prophecy. Hence it is obvious that, in the resurrection of Christ from the dead, the truth of his religion is proved both by the fact of his resurrection, which is a miracle of power, and by the fulfillment of his prediction, which is a miracle of knowledge.
He also predicted the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles in miraculous powers and gifts, and specified Jerusalem as the place at which this promise should be fulfilled. He farther specified the effects that should follow their possession of the miraculous powers thus conferred — that they should cast out devils, speak with new tongues, take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it should not hurt them. The Acts of the Apostles furnishes abundant testimony of the complete accomplishment of all these predictions.
Finally, Jesus Christ, in a very formal, solemn, and specific manner, foretold the destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem. He specified that so complete should be this destruction, that “not one stone should be left upon another;” and that Jerusalem should be trodden under foot by the Gentiles, till the time of the Gentiles should be fulfilled; and that this overthrow of the temple and city should take place before that generation should pass away. About forty years after this prediction was uttered the city was taken by the Romans, and the temple razed to the ground. It has never, been rebuilt. The apostate Emperor Julian collected the Jews from all countries, and, under the conduct of his favorite Alypius, sent them to rebuild their temple. Thus aided and assisted by all the powerful appliances this mighty potentate could command, when stirred to energy by his malice against Christianity, they went forth resolved to rebuild the temple, and thus confront and defeat the predictions of Jesus; but, while inflated with the prospect of immediate success, they were suddenly seized with a panic, and driven in confusion from the place of their operations. It is testified by several historians — and, among them, by Ammianus Marcellinus, a pagan philosopher, and an intimate friend of Julian — that “horrible balls of fire, breaking out near the foundation with frequent and reiterated attacks, rendered the place from time to time inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen; and that the victorious element continuing in this manner, obstinately bent, as it were, to repel their attempts, the enterprise was abandoned.”
Now we ask, What probability was there, at the time this destruction of Jerusalem was foretold, that any thing of the kind would so soon occur? The Jews were then a very feeble people, and it would seem exceedingly unreasonable to expect that they would soon attempt a conflict with so mighty a power as the Empire of Rome. The Gospels recording these predictions were published in the land of Judea — that of St. Matthew at least twenty or thirty years before the events in question transpired, and the others a very few years afterward; and all of them several years before the destruction of Jerusalem. Antiquity testifies that all the apostles, except John, were dead before the Romans, under Titus, invaded Judea; and it so happens that he is the only one of the evangelical authors who makes no mention of these events.
These events were to be preceded by signs. False Christs were to arise; seditions, wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, and wonderful appearances in the heavens; persecutions and apostasies of the disciples, and wickedness of the people — these were to be precursors of the judgment on Jerusalem. The city and temple were not only to be totally destroyed, but many were to perish by the sword, and great numbers be carried into captivity, and the tribulation was to surpass anything that had ever before been witnessed in the world; the Jewish Commonwealth was to be entirely overthrown, and the Jews themselves dispersed among all the nations of the earth; the Christians, being warned by Christ to flee to the mountains, were thus to escape.
It is a remarkable fact, that the principal historian who records the series of events which embody the fulfillment of these predictions, is Josephus, a learned Jew of the sacerdotal order. That he should designedly have shaped his history to favor the Christian cause, is a supposition too absurd to be entertained. But his testimony is corroborated by that of Philo, another Jewish historian, as also by the writings of Suetonius, Tacitus, and Seneca. The language of Josephus, in describing the calamities of these events, is the same in substance with that of the prediction. Christ says: “There shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time; no, nor ever shall be.” Josephus says: “The calamities of all people from the creation of the world, if they be compared with those suffered by the Jews, will be found to be far surpassed by them.” Titus, the Roman General, who, after seven months’ siege, took the city, after a survey of its immense fortifications, exclaims: “By the help of God we have brought this war to a conclusion. It was God who drew out the Jews from these fortifications; for what could the hands or military engines of men avail against such towers as these?”
That all these predictions of Christ concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, with its accompanying circumstances and the events that were to follow, have been most specifically and certainly fulfilled up to the present period, cannot be questioned, unless we discredit the concurrent testimony of the most reputable Jewish and pagan historians of those times. Having thus concluded our glance at the evidence of Christianity from prophecy, omitting entirely many predictions which might have been cited, and taking a much more cursory view of most of those, we have noticed than the subjects might seem to demand, yet we are fully persuaded that the evidence we have presented is sufficient to carry the conviction to every candid mind, that the Bible is in truth the word of God. Few, if any, of the objections of infidels to the evidence from prophecy are at all applicable to those predictions which we have had under review. If this statement be correct — which, we think, will be generally admitted — then it will follow that, admitting the validity of those objections (which we are far from doing) in reference to those prophecies to which they may be thought to be applicable, yet they cannot weaken the force of the evidence derived from the passages we have adduced. It cannot be claimed, in reference to any of these predictions, that they were written after the events; it cannot be alleged that, like the heathen oracles, they were delivered in general, vague, or ambiguous terms; it cannot be maintained that any of them have failed in the fulfillment; nor can it be said that any of them are frivolous or fanatical in their nature. On the contrary, it is as clear as evidence can render any truth of the kind, that they were all written before (and many of them thousands of years before) the events; that they were expressed in language minute, definite, and perspicuous; that they have been fulfilled with remarkable exactitude; and that they refer to events of the most serious and important nature — in a word, they are predictions, in their character and circumstances, worthy of God, from whom they emanated, and most clearly demonstrative of the divine legation of those who delivered them, and of the truth and inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. Let the sinner examine and weigh them well, and receive, believe, and obey the truth, and gain eternal life; or reject, deride, and rebel, and perish everlastingly!