THE KING’S BUSINESS
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parts, to every soldier a part; and also His coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said there among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose shall it b e : that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, they parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.” Every thing our Lord said, and everything con nected with Him, seemed to be designed to honor the Scripture. “After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.”6 It looks as if, hanging amid the agonies of the cross, He was casting His eyes over the wide and variegated field of ancient prophecy, and perceiving one little prediction, that re mained, He would not consent to bow His head in death, until all that was written of Him came to pass literally. “I lay down my life, that I might take it again,” He said; but would not lay it down before seeing that the Scripture was upheld. Pilate sent soldiers to hasten the death of the victims on the three crosses, and they brake the legs of the two robbers, but they brake not the legs of Jesus, for He was already dead. “For these things were done, that the Scriptures should be fulfilled, A bone of Him shall not be broken.” The original passage is found in an obscure clause of the narrative concerning the Pass- over, Ex. xii :46. Oh, that all preachers and all believers would learn from the example of our blessed Lord to reverence the Scripture, knowing that “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,” 2 Tim. iii:16, 17; and-that “the prophecy came not in old (or at any) time by the will of man: but holy men of God, spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” 2 Peter i :21. With renewed zeal for God’s Word we would soon see a mighty revival of God’s work.
the present tense of the verb to be, “I AM the God of Abraham,” not was the God. THE INSPIRED WRITER “David himself said by the Holy Ghost, the Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool,” Mark xii :36. How did David say it? By the Holy Ghost; and not only did David write the Psalm, contrary to the opinion of the Higher Critics, but. he was verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit. “The Scripture cannot be broken,” John x :35, not a chapter of it, not a verse of it, not a word of it, not a letter of it; but it is divine and unchangeable like the' being of God, because it is instinct with the pres ence of God, who is its author. God has manifested Himself in the incarnate Word whose humanity is perfect, and the inspired Word, which is also both divine and hu man, and the latter is as free from errors and mistakes as the former. “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth,” John xvii :17. Towards the dose of our Lord’s ministry He said to Peter, who defended Him with the sword, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He shall pres ently (forthwith, immediately, straightway) give me more than twelve legions of an gels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled? . . . But all this was done, that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled,” Matt. xxvi:53-56. He needed only to glance toward heaven, to lift a finger, to utter a cry for help, in order to escape a horrible death. One angel swept down upon the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 men in a night. A legion, when full, contained 10,000 soldiers; and mbre than 120,000 angels stood with poised wings on the battlements of the skies, ready to hurl Jerusalem and its guilty inhabi tants, if permitted, into the Dead Sea. He could easily have lived ; “but how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled?” “Then the soldiers, when they had cruci fied Jesus, took His garments and made four
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