finds in Him who said "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life."

"In Him again

We see the same first, starry attribute;

'Perfect through suffering,' our salvation's seal Set in the front of His Humanity.

For God has other Words for other worlds,

But for this world the Word of God is Christ."

66

CHAPTER VII.

CHRIST, THE MESSIAH.

"I am the Messiah." John iv, 26.

Strong Son of God, immortal Love."
-Tennyson.

ISRAEL'S conception of a Messiah in another way prepared for the coming of Christ. The way in which worldly and physical conceptions may in process of time be transformed into spiritual ideas is nowhere better illustrated than in the history of the Messianic idea.

This idea first found a home in Hebrew hearts after the beginning of the kingdom. In the earliest period of Israel's history only the kings were anointed, though afterwards it became the custom to anoint the priests also. The first to be called "the Lord's Anointed," (i. e., the Lord's Messiah, or Christ), was king Saul, who was thus designated by David. In due time David himself became the king, or "the Lord's Anointed." David, too, united Israel into a nation as she had never been united before, and by his

conquests over the surrounding countries, established an empire which held in subjection many vassal nations. This national glory lasted through the reign of Solomon, after which dissension and division within, and increased power on the part of neighboring nations without, caused Israel gradually to sink from the position of mistress to that of vassal.

It was under these circumstances that devout minds began to think of a Messiah, or an Anointed of the Lord, who could restore their old fortunes. It was natural that then they should look back to the reign of David and his kingdom as the pattern of all which they desired. Thus Hosea pictured the Messiah as "David their king"; 1 Isaiah as a kingly warrior, supernatural in strength, who should establish a kingdom of perfect righteousness and justice. While this ideal continued to fill the hearts of prophetic enthusiasts with hope, the exile came and went, and the long years of the Persian supremacy dragged on without bringing apparently nearer the realization of their hopes.

2

3

* Isa. xi.

As one generation after another, which had shared in these expectations, died, the conceptions entertained of the kingdom gradually changed. At first it had been. thought that only those who were fortunate enough to be alive at the appearing of the Messiah would share in it, but afterward it was thought that in connection with the coming of the Messiah the dead would be raised, that the pious Israelites who had died in hope might share in the joys of the kingdom, and that their foes, who had been permitted to die unpunished, might meet their proper reward.i At the same time greater emphasis was laid on the supernatural character of the kingdom. Men began to expect it to descend in some way from heaven, or to expect God to come down in some especial manifestation in order to inaugurate it. The great monarchies, at whose hands Israel had suffered, were typified by beasts; the emblem of this kingdom was a "Son of man." This term denoted at first that Israel's future empire was to be less savage and more noble in character

1 Dan. xii, 3, 4.

than the great world monarchies which had preceded it; but in a little while it became a name for the expected Messiah himself.

The years, however, still dragged on, and the great empires, though they changed, seemed to grow ever more powerful. Naturally men asked themselves with increasing earnestness whence one could come who should be powerful enough to contend with these, and with gradually increasing clearness the answer seemed to them to be that he must be from heaven.1 They, therefore, began to believe in the pre-existence of the Messiah, and to think of him as one whose destiny had been from the beginning more glorious before God than that of any of the angels. They called him the Son of God,2 and expected him to be revealed from heaven.

When Christ came the Jewish world was deeply stirred by the expectation of this Messiah. When Jesus had been accepted by His followers as the long-expected "Lord's

Ethiopic Enoch xlviii, 1-3; xlix, 2-4; li, 1-3; and Apocalypse of Baruch xxx, 1. 2 Eth. Enoch cv, 2. 4 Esd. xiv.