TALKS TO MEN lines of prophecy concerning the Messiah ; one line predicts a suffering Messiah, " despised and rejected of men,'' "a man of sorrows and ac quainted with grief." whose earthly mission should end in death and ignominy. The other line of prophecy predicts with equal clearness and definiteness an all-conquering Messiah, who should rule the nations with a rod of iron. How can both of these lines of prophecy be true? The best answer the ancient Jew had, before the ful fillment of both lines in Christ, was that there were to be two Messiahs, one a suffering Mes siah of the tribe of Joseph, and one a con quering Messiah of the tribe of Judah ; but in the actual fulfillment both lines of prophecy meet in the one Person, Jesus of Nazareth, who at His first coming is the suffering Messiah, making atonement for sin by His death upon the cross, as so often predicted in the Old Testament, and at His second coming He will come as a con quering King to rule the nations. But the prophecies of the types and symbols are even more conclusive than the explicit verbal prophecies. If you ask the ordinary, superficial student of the Bible, how much of the Old Testa ment is prophetical, he will reply something like this, " Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets are prophetical," an'1 may add that there are also prophetical passages here and there in the Psalms and Pentateuch. But if you ask a thorough-going student of the Bible
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker