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clothe himself with terror when he came to sojourn upon earth. He came not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He came as the Prince of peace. Place yourselves, in imagination, within the walls of Jerusalem, and listen to the announcement, "Behold, thy king cometh unto thee!" Guilty city, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that be sent unto thee,

this event, and the record of it, our minds are directed to the contemplation of the meekness, or humility and condescension, of the Lord Jesus Christ in his dealings with the church. The earthly Jerusalem, or daughter of Sion, is a type or picture of the spiritual city of God, the company of all true believers; and the meekness of Jesus on the occasion here recorded is a token of his gentleness and tenderness in seeking and gaining an en--behold, thy king cometh! You trance to the souls of his believing may ask, perhaps, How does he people in all ages.

Several reflections, of a pleasing and profitable kind, may arise from our contemplation of this meekness of the Lord Jesus. It reminds us, for example, that he comes to us in peace, and in love, and with a view not to erect a temporal throne, but to set up a spiritual kingdom, a kingdom distinguished not by earthly pomp and power, but by righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

The lowly Jesus comes to us in peace. He might have come, as the Lord from heaven, in wrath and righteous indignation. He might have descended with terrors greater than those of Sinai, and have filled every guilty heart with fear and trembling at his presence. A fire might have gone before him and have burnt up his enemies on every side; and the whole creation, marred and polluted by sin, might have been constrained to lift up a voice of lamentation and mourning and woe at the presence of offended Deity. But the Lord did not thus

come? In what manner, and for what purpose, is the king of heaven approaching this city of the haughty and hypocritical Pharisee, the unbelieving Sadducee, the profane and extortionate publican, the licentious sinner of every degree? Is he not coming "with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among men of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him?" But the answer is, Not so. He is coming in a meek and lowly form: he is advancing with every demonstration of friendship and peace!-In this respect, the Lord Jesus Christ comes to us now in his gospel, by his word and by his Spirit, just as he advanced towards Jerusalem of old. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them;"-not dealing with his offending creatures according to their iniquities, and vindicating the honour of his laws by

visiting every transgressor with me- | Redeemer, but our brother and our rited punishment, but proclaiming friend. Shrouding his glory be

his mercy, and offering reconciliation, and seeking to establish a covenant of peace. And, in the meekness with which he comes,in the foolishness of preaching which she choose to employ,—in the simplicity of those signs and pledges of his grace which he has chosen to appoint, and in the spirit of kindness, charity, and moderation which all churches are bound to exercise toward each other and all mankind, -we may discover plain and striking indications of the peaceful character of his mission and designs.

Again. The meekness of the Saviour is also a manifestation of his love. Contemplate the blessed Jesus as he draws nigh to Jerusalem, "meek and riding upon an ass, yea, even upon a colt the foal of an ass." He has laid aside the tokens of his majesty. If the eye of a mortal man were to behold this king in his beauty, surrounded by his heavenly splendour and the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, that man would fall at his feet as dead,-his heart would be overwhelmed with terror even by the presence and the apprehension of such transcendent greatness. But the Lord Jesus Christ emptied himself of his glory, and made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was found in fashion And still, notwithstanding his exaltation, he appears before us, in the gospel, man as well as God, not only our Maker and

as a man.

neath the veil of human nature, he is accessible, more than ever, to our reverent and tranquil contemplation; and not only so, but he reveals himself expressly as a HighPriest who was in all points tempted like as we are (yet without sin), and who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

Would we behold a further proof and indication of redeeming love? Still let us contemplate the meek and lowly Jesus in his approach towards Jerusalem. When he came near the city, "he wept over it," bewailing its impenitence, and its impending ruin. And thus the humility with which Christ comes to us, in the gospel, displays the Divine love to man not only as a poor, weak creature, standing at an infinite distance from God's majesty and greatness, but also to man as the heir of sorrow,—to man as the destroyer of his own peace,— to man in the mournful condition of a sinner.

Nor is this all. We have not yet considered the depth of our Lord's humility, or the extent of his Divine compassion. Not only does the Redeemer, by his tears, make it appear that he is not willing that any should perish, but he also reveals himself to us, by his work, as willing rather that the sinner should be saved. Let us view him once more in his approach towards Jerusalem: "Behold, thy king cometh unto thee." Yes. He advances thither not only clothed in

human nature,-not only weeping over men's sins and misery,—but he goes to die for those sins and to give his life a ransom for many. We have read his own declaration to this effect in the eighteenth and nineteenth verses of the foregoing chapter. All other steps of our Saviour's descent from his throne of glory were designed and adapted to conduct him to this, the lowest of them all, his suffering of death upon the cross. Why did the Lord Jesus Christ approach Jerusalem without any display of his Divine majesty or his almighty power? Why, when the traitor came to seize him, did he refuse to call unto his Father, who could have presently sent unto him more than twelve legions of angels? It was that the Scripture might be fulfilled, that thus it behoved Christ to suffer! It was that no impediment or obstacle should arise between the will of God the Father and the voluntary obedience of God the Son in human nature, about to present himself as a full and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. "Lo, I come, to fulfil thy will, O God. I am content to do it; yea, thy law is within my heart."

-Consider, then, the love of God, as it is displayed to us in the humiliation of Christ, the king of Zion. When Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus, the Jews said, "Behold, how he loved him!" But while we regard him as divested of his glory, and stripped, as it were, of his attributes of greatness and sovereignty

and power, in order that he might make his soul an offering for sin, how can we find language to expross the thought which must take possession of our souls, Behold, how he loved us! How great and generous and free, how complete and commanding, how deep and persevering, his compassion and tender concern for us miserable sinners, who lay in darkness and the shadow of death!

Again. We recognize in the history before us, as I have already said, a token and a proof of the spirituality of the gospel dispensation. The Lord Jesus draws near to Jerusalem, not only without the terrors of offended Deity,-not only divested of the majesty and glory of God over all, blessed for ever,but he comes without even the ensigns of royalty, without the weapons of temporal warfare, without any thing which, according to the customs of the world, may serve to mark his authority or to render him illustrious.

"Tell ye the

daughter of Sion, Behold, thy king cometh unto thee;"-not armed with the temporal sword, or adorned with the blazonry of earthly honours, but,-" meek and riding upon an ass, yea, even a colt the foal of an ass."

It is thus that the Lord Jesus Christ still makes his approaches to the soul of man. The weapons of his warfare are not carnal. He does not appeal to temporal motives: he trusts not to secular display. He makes no parade of human philosophy or learning, in seek

ing to win the soul. No. He comes as the meek and lowly Jesus. His claims and his promises alike are spiritual. The substance of his argument is the cross on which he died; the substance of his promise is the heaven in which he dwells. His kingdom is not of this world. His law is the law of love; and his reward is the happiness of sanctified affections, and the manifestation of the favour and approbation of God. He shows us his lowly birth and his humble life, he points to his bleeding cross and to his open tomb,and he sets at nought the pomp of ceremonial and the parade of rhe toric and the ingenuity of argument, while yet he addresses us in a voice more powerful than all others, and reveals to us a spectacle more imposing and more edifying than all besides, proclaiming that God is love, and saying, "Behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world!" And, in like manner, passing by human arguments and motives to godliness and virtue, he challenges attention to the value and destiny of the immortal soul, and calls for a heavenly mind and holy conversation. Pomp and ceremony, and the boast of antiquity, and the pride of reason, and the show of worldly wisdom, and the supposed merit or efficacy of selfinflicted pain and needless austerities, these things he leaves in the hands of craft, superstition, idolatry, and error. And he founds upon his own great work of suffering that powerful appeal, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole

world and lose his own soul?"-and that comprehensive claim, "If ye then be risen with Christ, set your affections on things above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God." The believer is conscious of the force of this appeal, and the power of this claim. He counts all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord; and he feels, in some degree, as St. Paul felt when he exclaimed, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."

"Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy king cometh unto thee.” Yes: it is not the soul of fallen man that makes the first advances towards God, but it is God in Christ who first makes his approach unto the soul. It is God who stoops down from heaven to take hold of man in his lost condition, not man who, in his pride and folly, is able to ascend to God. And it is still the gracious pleasure of the Lord Jesus Christ to draw near to the soul of his redeemed, so to speak, in great humility. He comes to it, not in the clouds of heaven,—not with the sound of terror or the display of pomp,-but he comes to it with the simple declaration of what he has done and suffered on its behalf,-he comes to it in the foolishness of preaching, he comes to it in the voice of conscience, or with the gentle whispers of his Holy Spirit, he comes to it in the mild example of his own most holy life,

or of his people's godly conversation; or, as his most awful method of approach, he comes to it in the bare announcement of a judgment which has not yet been set, and of those terrors of his wrath which have not yet begun to be revealed. Still, then, he comes to us in great humility and meekness. And herein we may continue to find a declaration of peace, and a message of love, and a demonstration of the spiritual nature of the claim which is made upon our hearts.

And who is it that thus meekly approaches us, in the gospel, as the messenger of peace, and the herald of love, and the bearer of unearthly, spiritual, claims? It is the lawful sovereign of our souls. "Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy king cometh unto thee!" He demands the cheerful submission of our minds and hearts, and requires us to do him homage by the obedience of our lives. And his reward is with him. He comes, not to impoverish the soul, but to enrich it; not to make it wretched, but to fill it with peace and joy ;-not to enslave it, but to make it free,-to break off the iron yoke of spiritual bondage, and to lay on it that easy yoke and that light burden which may be to it a token of emancipation, a badge of the glorious liberty of the sons of God. The Lord Jesus Christ appears before the soul in peace, with his heart full of love, and his hand rich with blessings. He demands admission into our hearts, and claims the exercise of his rightful sovereignty, not only

that his Father may be glorified, and that he may himself rejoice in us, but also that our joy may be full,-that we may become partakers of that blessedness which no other inmate and occupant of the soul is able to bestow.

Our happiness, as Christians, consists in a dutiful reception, and a willing entertainment, of this our heavenly King. Let us welcome his gracious approach with humility, faith, and love. So shall we be able to declare, with thankfulness and joy, in the words of the beloved disciple, "Of his fulness have we all received, and grace for grace." And, having thus yielded to the authority of our Lord and Saviour during this mortal life, in which he came to visit us in great humility, it will be our unspeakable happiness to awake up hereafter and behold his face with joy, when he shall come again, in his glorious majesty, to judge the living and the dead.

PSALM XLV.

My Saviour and my King,

Thy beauties are divine;
Thy lips with blessings overflow
And every grace is thine.

Now make thy glory known,

Gird on thy mighty sword, And ride in majesty to spread The conquests of thy word. O Lord, subdue thy foes,

Or melt their hearts t' obey; While justice, meekness, grace, and truth Attend thy glorious way.

Thy laws, O God, are right;

Thy throne shall ever stand; And thy victorious Gospel proves A sceptre in thy hand.

WATTS.

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