The Psalms of David were to Jesus all and more than they can be to any other son of man.
In certain of them he saw himself and his future life, his trials, conflicts, sufferings, resurrection, and final triumph foreshadowed. He quoted them to confound his enemies. When they sought to puzzle him with perplexing questions he met them with others equally difficult, drawn from the Scriptures. He asks them: —
"What think ye of the Messiah? whose son is he? They say unto him, the Son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?"
So, when they ask the question, "Which is the greatest commandment of all?" he answers by placing together two passages in the Old Testament, the one commanding supreme love to God and the other impartial love to man's neighbor. The greatest commandment of all nowhere stands in the Old Testament exactly as Jesus quotes it, the first part being found in Deuteronomy vi. 5, and the second in Leviticus xix. 18. This is a specimen of the exhaustive manner in which he studied and used the Scriptures.
Our Saviour quotes often also from the prophets. In his first public appearance in his native village he goes into the synagogue and reads from Isaiah. When they question and disbelieve, he answers them by pointed allusions to the stories of Naaman the Syrian and the widow of Sarepta. When the Sadducees raise the question of a future life, he replies by quoting from the Pentateuch that God calls himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living, for all are alive to him. He cites the history of Jonah as a symbol of his own death and resurrection; and at the last moment of his trial before the High Priest, when adjured to say whether he be the Christ or not, he replies in words that recall the sublime predictions in the Book of Daniel of the coming of Messiah to judgment. The prophet says: —
"I saw in my vision, and, behold, One like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days; and there was given unto him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all people and nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, that shall not pass away or be destroyed."
When the High Priest of the Jews said to Jesus, "I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us whether thou be Messiah or not," he answered, "I am; and hereafter ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven."
So much was the character of our Lord's teaching colored and impregnated by the writings of the Old Testament that it is impossible fully to comprehend Jesus without an intimate knowledge of them. To study the life of Christ without the Hebrew Scriptures is to study a flower without studying the plant from which it sprung, the root and leaves which nourished it. He continually spoke of himself as a Being destined to fulfill what had gone before. "Think not," he said, "that I am come to destroy the Law and the Prophets. I am not come to destroy but to fulfill." He frequently spoke of himself as of the order and race of Jewish prophets; like them he performed symbolic acts which were visible prophecies, as when he knew his nation had finally rejected him he signified their doom by the awful sign of the blasted fig-tree. Through all the last days of Jesus, as his death approaches, we find continual references to the Old Testament prophecies, and quotations from them.
And after his resurrection, when he appears to his disciples, he "opens to them the Scriptures;" that talk on the way to Emmaus was an explanation of the prophecies, by our Lord himself. Would that it had been recorded! Would not our hearts too have "burned within us!"
Now, a book that was in life and in death so dear to our Lord, a book which he interpreted as from first to last a preparation for and prophecy of himself, cannot but be full of interest to us Christians. When we read the Old Testament Scriptures we go along a track that we know Jesus and his mother must often have trod together. The great resemblance in style between the Song of Mary and the Psalms of David is one of the few indications given in Holy Writ of the veiled and holy mystery of his mother's life. She was a poetess, a prophetess, one whose mind was capable of the highest ecstasy of inspiration. Let us read the Psalms again, with the thought in our mind that they were the comforters, the counselors of Jesus and Mary. What was so much to them cannot be indifferent to us.
Nor did the disciples and Apostles in the glow of the unfolding dispensation cease to reverence and value those writings so closely studied by their Lord. They did not speak of them as a worn-out thing, that had "had its day," but they alluded to them with the affectionate veneration due to divine oracles. "The prophecy came not of old times by the will of man, but holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." St. Paul congratulates Timothy that "from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation," and adds: "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."
Even while the New Testament was being formed, its writers gave this complete testimony to the Old, as being able to make men "wise unto salvation," and to complete a man's spiritual education. This book, then, so dear to Christ and his Apostles, is something that should be dear to all Christians. Its study will enrich the soul. It is wonderful, mysterious, unique – there is no sacred book like it in the world; and in reading it we come nearer to Him who was foretold by it, and who when he came upon the earth found in it nourishment for his soul, instruction and spiritual refreshment by the wayside, comfort even in the extreme agonies of a dreadful death. However dear to us may be the story of his life in the Gospels and his teachings through his Apostles and their Epistles, let us in following his steps forget not "the Scriptures" which he bade us search, but diligently read and love the Bible of our Lord.
XI
CHRIST'S FIRST SERMON
The first public sermon of the long-desired Messiah – his first declaration of his mission and message to the world – what was it?
It was delivered in his own city of Nazareth, where he had been brought up; it was on the Sabbath day; it was in the synagogue where he had always worshiped; and it was in manner and form exactly in accordance with the customs of his national religion.
It had always been customary among the Jews to call upon any member of the synagogue to read a passage from the book of the prophets; and the young man Jesus, concerning whom certain rumors had vaguely gone forth, was on the day in question called to take his part in the service. It was a holy and solemn moment, when the long silence of years was to be broken. Jesus was surrounded by faces familiar from infancy. His mother, his brothers, his sisters, were all there; every eye was fixed upon him. The historian says: —
"And there was delivered unto him the book (or roll) of the prophet Isaiah, and when he had unrolled the book he found the place where it is written (Isaiah lxi.): —
The spirit of the Lord is upon me.
He hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor;
He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted;
To preach deliverance to the captives;
The recovering of sight to the blind;
To set at liberty them that are bruised;
To preach the acceptable year of the Lord."
We may imagine the sweetness, the tenderness, the enthusiasm with which this beautiful announcement of his mission was uttered; and when, closing the book, he looked round on the faces of his townsmen and acquaintances, and said, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears," – it was an appeal of Heavenly love yearning to heal and to save those nearest and longest known.
It would seem that the sweet voice, the graceful manner, at first charmed the rough audience; there was a thrilling, vibrating power, that struck upon every heart. But those hearts were cold and hard. A Saviour from sin, a Comforter of sorrow, was not what they were looking for in their Messiah. They felt themselves good enough spiritually, in their observance of the forms of their law and ritual; they were stupidly content with themselves and wanted no comforter. What they did want was