God's worship. And when you look at David as a hero,
king, or saint, and analyse the various features of his
character, and dwell on his generosity and prowess, his
forbearance toward Saul, and his love toward Jonathan ;
when you reflect that though he sinned, and sinned so
grievously, he repented, and mourned and wept in the
bitterness of his heart ; when you think that but for his
fall and his penitence those psalms had never been com-
posed those sighs and moans of a broken heart, which
have been the voice of every age in the church, the lan-
guage of its sorrow, and faith, and hopes ; when, in short,
you judge the son of Jesse by his age and position the
true standard of judgment : who would hesitate to pro-
nounce him a man after God's own heart ?
JOHN THE BAPTIST. 73
Now, Christ was " the root and branch of David " his
branch as He descended from him in human lineage, and his
root, too ; for, had it not been for the coming Messiah, he
had never been enthroned. His family became a dynasty in
order that Jesus might spring out of it "Of this man's
seed hath God raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus." Moses
had been raised up a saviour ; Joshua's very name implied
his being one ; each judge in turn was a saviour to his
country ; so Saul had been in his best days, and so was
David. But a Saviour more worthy of the name had recently
been raised Jesus who, himself a nobler personage, had
achieved a mightier deliverance, and at a more awful cost.
Nor did He come without a prior announcement. His
herald prepared the way for Him, according to ancient
prediction. The son of Elisabeth went before Him " in
the spirit and power of Elias." In dress, manner, and
tone, he resembled the great demigod of the olden time,
whose brow was clothed with thunder. The nation was
shaken at his voice; it came like a whirlwind from the
desert where he had been reared ; and as men's hearts
quaked and hoped, they flocked to his baptism. Few
ventured to challenge his divine commission, and there-
fore the apostle introduces his testimony. His was a
baptism of repentance it accompanied a profession of
repentance, and also of faith in a coming Messiah repent-
ance being at once its condition and its lesson. The per-
sons baptized vowed to prepare themselves for the great
advent. John, with all his popularity, maintained his
humility, solemnly disclaimed being the Messiah, asserted
the high dignity of his successor, and that he was unworthy
74 PAUL AT ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA.
to stoop to unstrap His sandals. And then Jesus came and
wrought out salvation a salvation not confined to the age
in which it was secured, or the territory on which it was
achieved. For the apostle thus announces his first appli-
cation " To you is the word of this salvation sent " this
salvation as the work of this Jesus ; and the word of it was
sent by God and through Christ ; the past tense of the
original verb referring to the earlier period. The previous
salvations were confined in their efficacy. They affected
but the generation who enjoyed them, and the exploits of
Gideon, the feats of Samson, or the equitable administra-
tion of Samuel could not be transplanted to distant regions.
If men wished to receive Jewish benefits, they must travel to
Jewry ; there alone could such blessings be of old enjoyed,
and not in Cyprus or Asia Minor. But to Jew and Gen-
tile the word of this best and last salvation had been sent ;
it could be enjoyed in Pisidia not less than in Palestine.
It came to them ; they needed not to go to it. And to
every one of them was it sent Jew and proselyte, without
exception, without discrimination. It had been wrought out
in Israel, by a son of Israel, and for Israel but for the
world also, yet first for Israel. Their duty, then, was to
receive the message, and give welcome to the glorious
Deliverer. He had come in God's name to save them:
Hosanna to the Son of David ! To us, too, the message
was sent, and is still offered. Though He was a Jew, the
Gentiles are not neglected. That blood, though it flowed
from Jewish veins, " cleanseth from all sin." This salva-
tion is for thee, whoever thou art man or woman, whatever
thy character or position, thy age or country, it is for thee.
MESSAGE OF MERCY. 75
Salvation for thee ! Burst into singing at the intelli-
gence; clasp it to thee, keep it, "let it not go, for it is
thy life." If not saved, thou art yet in danger, and that
danger is becoming more and more imminent. The longer
the vessel sails, the nearer she approaches the sunken reef,
unless her course be changed. Every step which the blind
wanderer takes, brings him nearer the precipice, unless he
accept the friendly warning and turn away. If salvation
has been provided, and be offered, and be within reach,
surely it becomes us to respond and lay hold on it, and by
faith make it our own. Britain owes its superiority to
Madagascar, because to its inhabitants these words have
been verified " To you is the word of this salvation sent."
More earnest improvement of the privilege is yet demanded
of us. If the word of salvation be sent and not received,
sent and only scorned, sent and made a theme of curious
inquiry, and not an object of faith; shall not God feel
that it has been missent, and may He not withdraw it?
Already, and in other lands, He has done this work of
judgment ; and may He not be provoked to repeat it ? If
we are guilty
"What better can we do than prostrate fall
Before Him, reverent, and there confess
Humbly our faults, and pardon beg with tears
Watering the ground ? "
The next portion of the address demonstrates the
Messiahship from Old Testament proofs. The apostle
thus proceeds
" For they that dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers, not
having recognized Him, and having condemned
76 PAUL AT ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA.
fulfilled the voices of the prophets read every Sabbath.
And having found (when they found) against Him no
cause of death, they asked Pilate that he should be slain ;
and when they had accomplished all the things written
concerning Him, having taken Him down from the tree,
they laid Him in a tomb. But God raised Him from the
dead. And He was seen for many days by them who
came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who at this
moment are His witnesses before the people. And we
declare unto you the glad tidings, to wit, the promise made
to the fathers, that God hath fulfilled it to us their chil-
dren, in that He hath raised up Jesus again ; as it is also
written in the first psalm ' Thou art my Son, this day I
have begotten thee.' And that He raised Him from the
dead, as one who should no more return to corruption,
He thus said ' I will give you the promises, holy and
sure, made to David. 7 Wherefore also he saith in another
psalm 'Thou shalt not suffer Thine Holy One to see
corruption.' For David after he had served the will of
God for his own generation, fell on sleep, and was laid
unto his fathers, and saw corruption ; but He whom God
raised up again, did not see corruption."
The word of that salvation was sent to the Jews and
proselytes of Pisidia, for this reason among others, that
Jerusalem, both rulers and population, had rejected it. It
was offered to them, and they would not have it. The
Sanhedrim had set it at nought ; the metropolis had refused
it Thus the apostle explains his anomalous position ; how
he a stranger to them had travelled so far to make them
such an offer an offer of a deliverance not confined to
UNJUST SENTENCE OF THE SANHEDRIM. 77
Israel in Palestine, but extending to the children of the
covenant in every region. And lest they should contract
any suspicions against his message, from the fact that the
central spiritual authority of their nation had refused it,
the apostle shows them how, even in this unbelief, their
own oracles had been fulfilled. To the wisdom of their
high council they might be apt to bow, and its decision in
a matter of supreme importance they would be inclined to
take, for it was upon the spot ; and having all the evidence
in its hands, would, as they fondly imagined, examine it
without prejudice, and come to a conclusion that courted
scrutiny and defied appeal. The apostle therefore asserts,
that in doing what they did, in acting out their pleasure
and condemning Jesus, they fulfilled the prophecies.
The rulers, or the majority of the Sanhedrim, condemned
Jesus, and the populace was at one with them. "Hosanna"
they shouted to-day, and with equal sincerity, " Crucify
Him" to-morrow. Strange it is that He should be thus
condemned ; this prince of preachers, who " spake as never
man spake;" this greatest of wonder-workers, who did as
never man did ; this purest of saints, who lived as never
man lived ; and this noblest of benefactors, who gave as
never man gave blessings in freest form, and for highest
ends, in crowded succession. But they sat in trial upon
Him, and they condemned Him. It was but a mockery of
judgment. Not only was the spirit of law violated, but
its forms were set at nought; the safeguards which pro-
tect justice and liberty were broken through. Caiaphas
had arrived at a foregone conclusion, which no amount
of opposing evidence could shake. u It is expedient that
78 PAUL AT ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA.
one man should die," said the crafty placeholder, and Jesus
was sacrificed to that expediency. Blood must be shed to
propitiate the jealous Roman power, and His was selected
as the political libation. The people acquiesced in the
decision of the rulers. They knew Him not in His
origin, claims, and mission, recognized Him not as the
Messiah. They could not discover the promised Deliverer
in Jesus of Nazareth. He did not correspond to their
anticipations. He disappointed them, and so the Saviour
of men became the rejected of men. As our version reads,
the apostle says that they also knew not the voices of the
prophets ; that is, they misinterpreted their own oracles,
applying them to political liberation and national bless-
ing. Had only a solitary voice been heard on this theme
in Jerusalem, and its echo borne to Galilee ; or had the
sacred roll been opened but once in a century, leaving the
intervening years to the faint and yet fainter record of
tradition there might have been some excuse. But the
prophets were read in the synagogues every Sabbath day /
the prophetical books being so divided that week after
week their voice was heard, and in a year all of them were
gone through. But they were misinterpreted. This version,
however, is somewhat cumbrous and involved, and demands
the repetition of an object for the verb "fulfilled." We
regard the apostle as saying, "For they who dwell in
Jerusalem and their rulers, not recognizing Him, and having
condemned Him, fulfilled the declarations of the prophets
read every Sabbath day." Still, the meaning is not very
different. They fulfilled the prophecies because they were
in ignorance of them. They were working out their own
FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY. 79
unhallowed inclinations when they were embodying in
action these ancient sayings. When they knew Him
not, they realized the prediction " There is no form nor
comeliness that we should desire Him." In their con-
demning Him was verified the oracle "He was oppressed
and he was afflicted." Their placing His cross between
those of the two thieves brought to pass that "voice"
" And he was numbered among transgressors." When He
was laid in Joseph's grave, the divine declaration was
confirmed " And he was with a rich man in His death."
Thus, the apostle alleges that, in condemning Jesus, his
enemies fulfilled the prophecies acted as unwitting instru-
ments in giving reality to inspired oracle so that the
Pisidian synagogue was not to be swayed by the metro-
politan bench ; rather were the results of their enmity so
many proofs of the divine origin and truth of Christianity.
They did simply as it had been foretold, though they did
not intend it. For, it is one thing to read the scriptures,
but a different thing to understand them. One may
apprehend their general historical contents, and yet fail to
perceive their spiritual import and beauty. They can only
be understood in their relationship to Christ the Saviour,
and they produce spiritual benefit just in so far as they
reveal to the heart the glory and power of Christ; His
infinite love to move it, and His atoning death on which it
can securely rely. One may admire the gospels as a
biography of rare simplicity and tenderness, but more is
needed than delight in the composition faith must be
added to the gratification of taste. The pen of the evan-
gelist may fascinate, but the Redeemer's cross must be the
80 PAUL AT ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA.
one object of an adoring confidence. " Search the scrip-
tures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they
are they which testify of Me."
The apostle does not enter on the question of their
criminality, nor take up the theory of their responsibility.
He would not discuss a metaphysical problem as to
man's moral freedom when he acts in a path predicted
for him, and engages in actions the time, mode, and
results of which have been already portrayed. The
scene was one of necessity the mouth of the Lord had
spoken it but it was a necessity consistent with most
perfect liberty. The rulers and people were in no way
constrained ; they had no sense of compulsion ; they were
in no form led or lured by a controlling power. They had
their own motives, motives springing out of their associa-
tions and judgments, and these they allowed freely and
fully to sway them. Never is prophecy the rule of duty ;
ethics are a present obligation, wholly disconnected with
the divine prescience and its foreshadowings. My duty is
not sketched by the Spirit's pencillings, but prescribed by
the Spirit's words. It is with injunction, not with predic-
tion, that I have to do. God will take care of His own
plans, but I am charged with the purity of my own
motives and actions. What I should be, is my question,
apart from what shall be in the drama acting around me.
The men who condemned Jesus cannot be assoilzied because
through them prophecy was fulfilled, and life brought to
the world. No, the Pharisees writhed under exposure,
the Sadducees hated religious stir, Judas grasped the
money, Pilate loved his place, the crowd raged in chagrin
"CRUCIFY HIM." 81
and disappointment ; and the result of these combined and
opposite causes was, that Jesus was condemned and put to
death, in fulfilment of " all that was written of Him."
Nay, their criminality was of deepest dye. They found
no cause of death in Him nothing worthy of capital punish-
ment, and therefore they desired Pilate to have him taken
off. Could they have so arraigned Him as by a common
judicial process to have condemned Him, then they would
not have resorted to clamour for His death, or asked it as
a favour from a heathen governor. They tried Him on a
charge of blasphemy, and, though bolstered up by false
witnesses, it failed on cross-examination "their witness
did not agree." They laboured to induce Him to inculpate
Himself, and from one of His declarations they professed
to recoil in horror, and to convict Him of blasphemy. But
they had lost what is technically called the power of life
and death, and though they might pronounce a capital
sentence, they could not inflict it. It must be ratified by
the procurator ere it could be executed. Honest judges on
going to him would have shown him what the evidence
was, and how it supported the conclusion at which they
had arrived. But the Sanhedrim, on approaching Pilate,
did not venture to substantiate the charge of blasphemy
before him ; they cuningly shifted their ground, and
accused Him of political crime. But the accusation of
treason could not be at all brought home to Him. They
then stooped to clamour and vociferation, and by influ-
encing the selfish and timid mind of Pilate, they obtained
their end. On every appeal that he made to them, they
cried out the more " crucify Him." They would not have
F
82 PAUL AT ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA.
deigned to do this if other and more plausible means
could have secured their purpose. But, in spite of His
innocence, they were resolved on His death, their tumultu-
ous cry prevailed, and Pilate, against his own conviction,
gave way. But prophecy was coming into act, as Jesus
was condemned, scourged, mocked, crucified, and Iburied.
His death, in itself and its concomitants, was a signal
fulfilment of prediction, verifying the " things concerning
Him " in the law, the prophets, and the psalms.
Jesus was taken down from the tree after there remained
no doubt that He was dead. They that is, the rulers and
dwellers in Jerusalem took Him down ; the burial as well
as the death is, in the popular construction of the sentence,
ascribed to them. The same persons that crucified our
Lord did not, indeed, entomb Him ; though, certainly, the
Jewish rulers took care that, if they did not bury Him, His
grave should be jealously watched. They thought, indeed,
that His cause and claims were buried along with Him, and
they did not expect a resuscitation. The burial was also
an indispensable step to the resurrection ; a proof of the
reality of His death, and necessary as a palpable evidence
of His being brought back to life. His second life on earth
was not simply a revival as with the daughter of Jairus
for its reality might have been impugned, but it was a
resurrection, for He was openly laid in the sepulchre, and
His grave guarded by sentinels. Thus did men act toward
Him : condemn Him, slay Him, and bury Him. It was a
dark period, that of His abode in the tomb. % Enemies
rejoiced and friends desponded, "trusting it had been He
who should have redeemed Israel." That was a myste-
THE EMPTY SEPULCHRE. 83
rious Sabbath during which He lay under the power of
death the light of men in the gloom of the sepulchre, the
life of the world a lifeless corpse ; He who promised that
any one believing on Him should never die, had Himself
died and gone to the grave. The sun was under eclipse,
and a deep shadow fell on the earth.
On the other hand, " God raised Him from the dead,"
men buried Him, but God raised Him : and the best proof
that He did rise is His being seen, and seen " many days,"
of them that had been familiar with Him, and who could not
be mistaken in His appearance and identity. The apostle
here probably refers to the eleven, and the early band of
believers, those who accompanied Him from Galilee to
Jerusalem on His last journey. He appeared often to the
apostles, and also to above five hundred brethren at once.
Peter has the same line of proof He appeared " not to all
the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even
to us who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from
the dead." To have appeared in a crowd who could not
identify Him would have been no proof, and therefore the
eleven were signally honoured. And they were not con-
cealing their testimony. The Pisidian Jews might ask
whether, in the very focus of these wonders, the same word
of salvation was proclaimed, and the apostle tells them that
the chosen people in Palestine were amply supplied with
eye-witnesses of these awful realities. They could not but
speak the things they "had seen and heard," and while
they were " His witnesses unto the people " in Palestine,
the apostle says for himself and his colleague
" We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise
84 PAUL AT ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA.
which was made unto the fathers, the same God hath ful-
filled unto us their children, in that He hath raised up Jesus
again." That gospel should be no novelty to the Hebrew
mind, it was but the fulfilment of a promise long ago
made a promise the Hebrew nation had for centuries clung
to, and fondly prayed over. That a Deliverer should come
to them and of them, was the voice of their prophets and
the song of their bards ; the testimony of Jesus was the
spirit of prophecy ; and if the promise was in itself of such
moment, as being God's highest gift ; if it was the text of
inspired men for more than two thousand years ; if they
were raised up from time to time to repeat, confirm, and
illustrate it; if the nation lived by the hope of it, and
anxiously longed for the period when it should be realized,
now, when it had come to pass, they were surely to hail its
fulfilment as glad tidings. Israel had lived on promise
the Christian church is sustained by facts. The world was
never left without hope, but it was long " hope deferred."
The first promise was made in Eden, but Adam died, and
yet the " Seed of the woman" had not bruised the Serpent's
head. Abraham and the patriarchs passed away, and
still the Blessing of all nations had not appeared. Moses
and his successors in judgment left the world, but the
Prophet like unto him had given no utterance. David
and his royal sons were carried to the tomb of the kings,
and yet his throne was not filled by his Son and Lord.
Isaiah sang, but his melody was inspired by the future ;
the tears of Jeremiah fell on unrepaired desolations ; the
thunders of Habbakkuk died away in the distance ; Daniel
pictured revolutions, but they were only shakings prepara-
GLAD TIDINGS. 85
tory to the era of universal peace ; Haggai portrayed the
glory of the second temple, but its courts had not been
trodden by " the Desire of all nations." -No wonder that,
when a promise so often made, on which so much
depended, and which was so deeply cherished as the
hearts' life of the nation, was fulfilled, the news should be
styled " THE GLAD TIDINGS." The suspense of four thou-
sand years was removed when the babe was born in
Bethlehem. The children reaped what the fathers had
sowed glad tidings truly ; news such as had never before
been proclaimed ; not political deliverance, nor triumph
over oppressors good news for a downtrodden people ; not
the mission of Joshua to settle, of Gideon to smite, or of
Samuel to rule, but salvation freedom from the worst of
evils, sin and death ; restoration to the divine favour and
image, fully provided, freely offered, and certainly enjoyed
by every one who believes the blessed intelligence.
What emotions should not such tidings stir up within us !
Speak to Poland of resuscitation, and it surges into armed
fury ; whisper to Hungary of independence, and its valleys
burst into a warlike song ; inform the patriot of his country's
danger, and his eyes flash out his nobleness of soul ,* proclaim
to-night the discovery of a gold field to a city, and the news
empties it of all its able-bodied men before the sunrise of
to-morrow ; let the warder, as he walks the ramparts, tell
the blockaded town, stricken with hunger and pestilence,
and the living scarce sufficing to bury the dead, that he
sees the glittering banners of a relieving army drawn
on the distant evening sky, and the populace cannot
sleep for joy. Were we really alive to our state, did we
86 PAUL AT ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA.
turn our gaze within, and did we, as we survey that spirit-
ual havoc which sin has wrought, shudder at the danger
which it has entailed; did we feel that no hand can rectify
those disorders but His who made us, and did we remem-
ber that all depends on such a change produced by Him,
and that the moral wreck untouched is hell begun and to
gather in fierceness O would we not cheerfully accept, as
glad tidings, the advent of One who knows and pities us ;
who blesses and saves us ; whose blood pardons, and whose
Spirit transforms; who produces a mighty revolution
within us, bringing with it the germ, as it reveals the
certainty, of everlasting life ? And yet, alas, how often are
such tidings received with indifference or contempt, scarcely
exciting attention, as if they were indifferent trifles, or were
melancholy in their contents. Let those who hear them
receive them as true tidings, and welcome them as glad
tidings : that the peace and joy of the gospel may fill their
hearts; and that they may learn to "joy in God through
our Lord Jesus Christ." Comprehend the good news and
their adaptation to you. Bless God for them, and walk
in the spirit of them. Beyond the tomb there is no such
message. No herald there makes proclamation of respite,
or pardon, or amelioration, or end.
The apostle is addressing Jews, and he gives point and
pith to his appeal by references to the Old Testament, not
for illustration, but for argument. Christianity is regarded
by him as the crown and realization of Judaism. The
career of Christ was but the fulfilment of an old promise.