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"The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."

Our Lord asserts nothing more frequently than that he came to this world, not as other men come, but as a voluntary exile from a higher and purer life. He said in public, speaking to the Jews, "I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me." When the Jews tauntingly said to him, "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?" he answered, "Before Abraham was, I AM." In fact, while he walked as a brother among men, there were constant and mysterious flashes from the life of a higher sphere. Jesus moved about in our life as a sympathetic foreigner who ever and anon in moments of high excitement breaks out into his native language. So Christ at times rose into the language of heaven, and spoke for a moment, unconsciously as it were, in the style of a higher world.

He did not say, "Before Abraham was, I was," but "I AM," using the same form which in the Old Testament is used by Jehovah when he declares his name to Moses, "I AM that I am." So, too, when conversing with Nicodemus, our Lord asserts that he is the only person competent to bear testimony to heavenly things, because he came from heaven.

He says, "No man hath ascended into heaven but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." This last is one of those changes into the language of a higher world which so often awed and perplexed those who talked with Jesus. It would seem that he had the power by moments to breathe aside the veil which separates from the higher state, and to be in heaven. Such a moment was this, when he was declaring to an honest-minded, thoughtful inquirer the higher truths of the spiritual life, and asserting his right to know about heavenly things, because he came down from heaven – yea, because for the moment he was in heaven.

But in the last hours of his life, when he felt the scenes of his humiliations and sufferings approaching, he declared this truth, so often shadowed and intimated, with explicit plainness. He said, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world. Again, I leave the world, and go to the Father." This was stating the truth as plainly as human words can do it, and the disciples at last understood him fully. "Lo! now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb." And in that affecting prayer that followed our Lord breathes the language of an exile longing to return to the home of his love: "And now, O Father! glorify me with thine own self – with the glory that I had with thee before the world was."

It is then most plain on the face of the New Testament that our Lord had a history before he came to this world. He was a living power. He was, as he says, in glory with the Father before the world was. Are there any traces of this mysterious Word, this divine Son, this Revealer of God in the Old Testament? It has been the approved sentiment of sound theologians that in the Old Testament every visible appearance of an Angel or divine Man to whom the name of Jehovah is given is a pre-appearance of the Redeemer, Jesus. It is a most interesting study to pursue this idea through the Old Testament history, as is fully done by President Edwards in his "History of Redemption" and by Dr. Watts in his "True Glory of Christ." In Milton's "Paradise Lost" he represents the Son of God as being "the Lord God who walked in the Garden of Eden" after the trespass of our first parents, and dwells on the tenderness of the idea that it was in the cool of the day, —

This sentiment of the church has arisen from the plain declaration in the first chapter of John, where it is plainly asserted that "no man hath seen God at any time, but the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." The Old Testament records to which our Lord constantly appealed were full of instances in which a being called Jehovah, and spoken of as God, – the Almighty God, – had appeared to men, and the inference is plain that all these were pre-appearances of Christ.

It is an interesting study for the sacred season of Advent to trace those pre-appearances of our Lord and Saviour in the advancing history of our race. A series of readings of this sort would be a fit preparation for the triumphs of Christmas, when he, the long-desired, was at last given visible to man.

We shall follow a few of these early appearances of the Saviour, in the hope that some pious hearts may be led to see those traces of his sacred footsteps, which brighten the rugged ways of the Old Testament history.

In the eighteenth chapter of Genesis we have an account of a long interview of Abraham with a being in human form, whom he addresses as Jehovah, the Judge of all the earth. We hear him plead with him in words like these; —

"Behold now, I have taken on me to speak unto Jehovah, which am but dust and ashes … that be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

What a divine reticence and composure it was, on the part of our Lord, when afterwards he came to earth and the scoffing Jews said to him, "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?" He did not tell them how their father Abraham had been a suppliant at his feet ages ago, yet he must have thought of it as they thus taunted him.

Again we read in Genesis xxviii., when Jacob left his father's house and lay down, a lonely traveler, in the fields with a stone for his pillow, the pitying Jesus appeared to him: —

"He dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached unto heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. And behold, Jehovah stood above it, and said, I am Jehovah, God of Abraham, thy father."

As afterwards Jesus, at the well of Samaria, chose to disclose his Messiahship to the vain, light-minded, guilty Samaritan woman, and call her to be a messenger of his good to her townsmen, so now he chose Jacob – of whom the worst we know is that he had yielded to an unworthy plot for deceiving his father – he chose him to be the father of a powerful nation. Afterward our Lord alludes to this vision in one of his first conversations with Nathaniel, as given by St. John: —

"Jesus said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these, Verily I say unto you, hereafter ye shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man."

This same divine Patron and Presence watches over the friendless Jacob until he becomes rich and powerful, the father of a numerous tribe. He is returning with his whole caravan to his native land. But the consequence of his former sin meets him on the way. Esau, the brother whom he deceived and overreached, is a powerful prince, and comes to meet him with a band of men.

Then Jacob was afraid and distressed, and applies at once to his heavenly Helper. "I am not worthy," he says, "of all the mercy and all the truth which thou hast shown to thy servant, for with my staff I passed over this Jordan and now I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I fear him, lest he come and smite me and the mother with the children." Such things were common in those days – they were possible and too probable – and what father would not pray as Jacob prayed?

Then follows a passage of singular and thrilling character. A mysterious stranger comes to him, dimly seen in the shadows of the coming dawn. Is it that human Friend – that divine Jehovah? Trembling and hoping he strives to detain him, but the stranger seeks to flee from him. Made desperate by the agony of fear and entreaty, he throws his arms around him and seeks to hold him. The story is told briefly thus: —

"And Jacob was left alone. And there wrestled A MAN with him until the breaking of day. And when he saw that he prevailed not he touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And the man said, Let me go, for the day breaketh; and he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. And he said, What is thy name? and he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince thou hast power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob said, I beseech thee tell me thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there."

How like is this mysterious stranger to the One in the New Testament history who after the resurrection joined the two sorrowful disciples on the way to Emmaus. There is the same mystery, the same reserve in giving himself fully to the trembling human beings who clung to him. So when the disciples came to their abode "he made as though he would go farther," and they constrained him and he went in. As he breaks the bread they know him, and immediately he vanishes out of their sight.

In his dying hour (Gen. xlviii.) the patriarch Jacob, after an earthly pilgrimage of a hundred and forty-seven years, recalls these blessed visions of his God: —

"And Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me."

And again, blessing the children of Joseph, he says: —

"God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads."

But it was not merely to the chosen father of the chosen nation that this pitying Friend and Saviour appeared. When the poor, passionate, desperate slave-girl Hagar was wandering in the wilderness, struggling with the pride and passion of her unsubdued nature, he who follows the one wandering sheep appeared and spoke to her (Gen. xvi.). He reproved her passionate impatience; he counseled submission; he promised his protection and care to the son that should be born of her and the race that should spring from her. Wild and turbulent that race of men should be; and yet there was to be a Saviour, a Care-taker, a Shepherd for them. "And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me; for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?"

Afterwards, when the fiery, indomitable passions of the slave-woman again break forth and threaten the peace of the home, and she is sent forth into the wilderness, the Good Shepherd again appears to her. Thus is the story told (Gen. xxi.): —

"And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs, and she went and sat down a good way off, for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And God heard the voice of the lad, and the angel of the Lord called to Hagar out of heaven, saying, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not. God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, hold him in thy hand, for I will make of him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water."

Thus did he declare himself the Care-taker and Saviour not of the Jews merely, but of the Gentiles. It was he who afterwards declared that he was the living bread which came down from heaven, which he gave for the life of the WHOLE WORLD.

Afterwards, in the history of Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, we read of a divine Being who talked with him in a visible intimacy: —

"And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and Jehovah talked with Moses. And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose up and worshiped, each man in his tent door. And Jehovah spake unto Moses, face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend."

Some record of this strange conversation is given. Moses was a man of wonderful soul, in whom was the divine yearning; he longed to know more and more of his God, and at last beseeches to have the full beatific vision of the divine nature in its glory; but the answer is: "Thou canst not see my face [in its divine glory], for there shall no man see me and live." That overpowering vision was not for flesh and blood; it would dissolve the frail bonds of mortality and set the soul free, and Moses must yet live, and labor, and suffer.

What an affecting light this interview of Moses sheds on that scene in the New Testament, where, just before his crucifixion, the disciples see their Master in the glory of the heavenly world, and with him Moses and Elijah, "who spake with him of his decease, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem," – Moses, who had been taught by the divine Word in the wilderness how to organize all that system of forms and sacrifices which were to foreshadow and prepare the way for the great Sacrifice – the great Revealer of God to man. We see these noble souls, the two grandest prophets of the Old Testament, in communion with our Lord about that last and final sacrifice which was to fulfill and bring to an end all others.

A little later on, in the Old Testament history, we come to a time recorded in the Book of Judges when the chosen people, settled in the land of Canaan, sunk in worldliness and sin, have forgotten the Lord Jehovah, and as a punishment are left to be bitterly oppressed and harassed by the savage tribes in their neighborhood. The nation was in danger of extinction. The stock from which was to come prophets and apostles, the writers of the Bible which we now read, from which was to come our Lord Jesus Christ, was in danger of being trampled out under the heel of barbarous heathen tribes. It was a crisis needing a deliverer. Physical strength, brute force, was the law of the day, and a deliverer was to be given who could overcome force by superior force.

Again the mysterious stranger appears; we have the account in Judges xiii.

A pious old couple who have lived childless hitherto receive an angelic visitor who announces to them the birth of a deliverer. And the woman came and told her husband, saying, "A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible; but I asked him not whence he was, neither told he me his name." This man, she goes on to say, had promised a son to them who should deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines. Manoah then prays to God to grant another interview with the heavenly messenger.

The prayer is heard; the divine Man again appears to them and gives directions for the care of the future child, – directions requiring the most perfect temperance and purity on the part of both mother and child. The rest of the story is better given in the quaint and beautiful words of the Bible: —

"And Manoah said to the angel of Jehovah, I pray thee let us detain thee till we shall have made ready a kid for thee. And the angel of Jehovah said to Manoah, Though thou detain me I will not eat of thy bread; and if thou wilt offer a burnt offering thou must offer it unto Jehovah. For Manoah knew not that he was an angel of Jehovah. And Manoah said, What is thy name? that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee honor. And the angel of the Lord said unto him, Why askest thou my name, seeing that it is secret? So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering and offered it upon a rock to the Lord; and the angel did wonderously, and Manoah and his wife looked on. For it came to pass, when the flame went up to heaven from off the altar, that the angel of Jehovah ascended in the flame on the altar, and Manoah and his wife fell on their faces on the ground. And Manoah said, We shall surely die, for we have seen God."

This tender, guiding Power, this long-suffering and pitying Saviour of Israel, appears to us in frequent glimpses through the writings of the prophets.

Isaiah says, "In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of his Presence saved them; in his love and his pity he redeemed them, and he bore and carried them all the days of old."

It is this thought that gives an inexpressible pathos to the rejection of Christ by the Jews. St. John begins his gospel by speaking of this divine Word, who was with God in the beginning, and was God; that he was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

This gives an awful, pathetic meaning to those tears which Christ shed over Jerusalem, and to that last yearning farewell to the doomed city: —

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not."

It gives significance to that passage of Revelation where Christ is called "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."

Not alone in the four years when he ministered on earth was he the suffering Redeemer; he was always, from the foundation of the world, the devoted sacrifice: bearing on his heart the sinning, suffering, wandering race of man, afflicted in their afflictions, bearing their griefs and carrying their sorrows, the friend of the Jew and the Gentile, the seeker for the outcast, the guide of the wanderer, the defender of the helpless, the consoler of the desolate, the self-devoted offering to and for the sins of the world.

In all these revelations of God, one idea is very precious. He reveals himself not as a fixed Fate – a mighty, crushing, inexorable Power – but as a Being relenting, tender, yearning towards the race of man with infinite tenderness. He suffers himself to be importuned; he hides himself that he may be sought, and, although he is omnipotent, though with one touch he might weaken and paralyze human strength, yet he suffers human arms to detain and human importunity to conquer him, and he blesses the man that will not let him go except he bless. On this scene Charles Wesley has written his beautiful hymn beginning, —

"Come, O thou Traveler unknown."

The struggles, the sorrows, and aspirations of the soul for an unknown Saviour have never been more beautifully told.