SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9307, 9 March 1889, Page 4 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING.

THE DIVINE LAMB. [by dr. maclakes , .] " Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world."— John i., 29. " Ami I beheld, and, lo . . . the Lamb as it had been slain."—Kev. v., 0. Onk of the two disciples who heard John's proclamation was that John who was afterwords the apostle and author of the Gospel and Apocalypse. The first words, then, which directed him to Christ were " Behold the Lamb of God." Long years have passed away; the Baptist sleeps in a bloody grave ; the young fisherman has found out depths in Christ which he had little dreamed of by the fords of the Jordan. But now in the rugged Patmos, with the waves dashing round him, the new scene unlike the old, and he himself changed most of all, the vision of his Lord is granted to him once more. Is it not beautiful and significant that the words which he heard through the door of Heaven sound like the echo of the proclamation which he had heard years before, and which first led him to Christ? " Behold the Lamb of God." " And I beheld, and, lo . . . the Lamb as it had been slain !" The word employed for Lamb is different in the two sentences, but the ring is the same. If we further notice that John is the only evangelist who records the sentiments of the Baptists, and the only New Testament writer who records the name of Lamb for Jesus, wo have an idea of how deep was the impression made upon him by the earliest words of his Teacher ; and life and growing experience only taught him more and more of the depths that lay in that first proclamation. Ah ! brethren, happy for us if life only unfolds to us the fulness of what we received in our first glimpse of Christ; if old o.ge can repeat the creed of youth with deeper significance, and if we can trust that Heaven itself, if it opened, would show us the same Christ which we had dimly seen amidst the confusions and errors of life. First of all about that which is the basis of everything, the Lamb slain. If we go back for a moment to John the Baptist's testimony, and ask ourselves what there was in the Old Testament history which might lead him to cast his proclamations into such a form, we shall distinguish the elements which I venture to designate as the lamb in history, in ritual, and in prophecy. The lamb in history—remember that scene, perhaps the most pathetic in all literature, where the father and boy are going up the mountain side together, and the question so shattering to the father's heart occurs : " Here is the wood ; where is lamb for the burnt offering?" How the father must have crushed down his heart and steadied his voice before he answered, " My son, God Himself will provide a lamb for the offering." Long centuries after John the ISaptist stands up and states, in effect the old conviction that human sacrifices are not acceptable, but the surrender of the heart is, and that he was taught that the true sacrifice was not one offered by man, but one provided by God. The old conviction is true, and there it stands, the Lamb of God, sent by Him for the sins of the world. Then there is, besides that, the Lamb of the Ritual: whether you take the Pascal Lamb or the lamb of the daily sacrifice—and that covers the Baptist's representations, and enters deeply into the evangelist's conception of what Jesus Christ is to mankind. VY'hen lie tells us, in the style of the crucifixion, that the early death of Christ exempted Him from the ignominy which befel Ilis companions on the cross, the prophecy is fulfilled which said that He should not have a bone of Him broken. When he said, "Behold the Lamb which taketh away the sins of the world," he was almost verbally quoting the grand and enigmatical words of the prophecy. These three three foundations, then, of history, of ritual, of prophecy, all contribute their streams, which converge hi this great proclamation. Many attempts have been made to eviscerate this "from the sacrificial element. We have been told that the Lamb of God only points to the gentleness and innocence of the character of the Sufferer. What is the meaning of the next clause, "Which taketh away the sins of the world ?" John was thinking of the sacrifice, and no fair canon and interpretation can strike out of these words the distinct sacrificial colouring, or the teaching that Christ beareth the sins of the world, and sweep them away. So much, then, for John the Baptist's witness. Therefore, turn to the evangelist's testimony. He laid hold of the sacrificial element of the representation as being the main element which controlled and coloured all the rest. " As to him, the Lamb was the Lamb, as it had been slain." So that, whatever commentators may say of John's proclamation, the evangelist tells us the meaning of it is sacrifice, and that is the foundation of everything. This, as a representation of Christ in His work in relation to the world, underlies all the others of which I may have to say a word. However incongruous that picture may seem to be, the very incongruity gives force to the teaching it conveys ; that the Lamb slain is the view under which we must first contemplate Jesus Christ. In that grand vision in my second text there is conveyed plainly this teaching, that for Heaven and for earth the sacrifice of Christ underlies all the sweetness and the glory of the one and the forgiveness of the other. The saints above and we on earth are one in this : that our power and blessedness depend solely and for ever upon the one sacrifice offered for ever for the sins of man by Christ, I have no time to enlarge upon this thought; but I want here, on this, the first occasion I open my lips in this great city of yours, to commence my ministry _ with _ this distinct testimony, that there is neither hope, nor blessedness, nor forgiveness, nor nobleness of life except as we grasp the idea of the "Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world." The proclamation of the Baptist was enigmatical, but the apocalyptic vision explains it. Secondly, take that other class of representations which I crystallise in the one expression, "the enthroned Lamb." We read in my second text what I may call the apocalyptic ground plan of the universe, In the centre the throne, and in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders the slain Lamb. In the vacant space between the throne and the elders stood the Lamb, symbolical of His meditation. Through Him there comes down to all creatures the blessings which God grants to them, and through Him there passes up from all creatures a chorns of everlasting raise. So long as man can worship the Lamb as the Temple, so long as man conceives -the Lamb as the Light, so long as the universe lives Christ is their life. He st. .ids in the vacant space between tae throne ana

laced the book lands that were nailed to theT™ Those aerced. through with the cruel^ 088 ¥ ho!d theßceptr™CnT^ •urtheronin that great vision th?£ union is depicted as the doming >n sacrifice. It is because £?£* he enthroned Lamb. The crown "of^w ,3 miverse is placed on the same hJ$ i ha jrore the crown of thorns. The onlv ?** lominion is that which He exerris* trn a rate of what people sav. ffiT J* i! tho world tells us this that t» hl8tor ? nore Jesus Christ is becoming £*>,** >f nations, who moulds tho institnt; lx % iociety even as He rules the w?l£f≥? 8 °* iciences of men. The enthroned ihe Kim; of Kings and Lord o f T i « Brethren, it is of lasting importance that* should keep before us this sense of nt 9 sent activity of that exalted Lord \v Pre ' lot make too much of Christ but Z» Can * nake too little of the throne! W« £ma ;hink too much of the work of wh,vW Himself said, "It is finished;" but *» He slunk too little of the present work will never be finished until the nroclam!,*rings out its tone that the kingdoms 5 & world are the kingdoms of Chri**- 11 living Christ. It is hard for usTtfk * that vision before us here amidst the bn^P of business, the weariness and obstrnr-H and evils o{ the flesh, and the selS2*2 our nature. Oh, how small and n OO r noise of Ephesus, with its storm and triV 9 lation and persecution, would seem to tV apostle when the door was opened in Hear U and he saw his Master! How small v great city and all the bustle of Its D n streets, and the progress of your commercial prosperity, and all the other things thai surround you. How small they would lnolif you once beheld the vision of the * throned Lamb. John saw the enthrone I Lamb and why should you not? What h saw are the realities. The things of this Iff are the phantasma. 'What he saw was figment of the imagination, but a momenta™ unfolding and making plain to the eves the things that always are. And if could swing back the curtain between us and Him, we, too might gaze upon the en. throned Christ. cu # We have, en : in the third place, the vision of the Shepherd Lamb, and 1 need not recall the passage in which that aspect of tho vision is contained. The chief is that ereafc one in which we read of the multitude before the throne, of whom it was said, "Th Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and be their Shepherd, and lead them by living fountains and waters, where the multitude follow the Lamb wheresoever Ho goeth." However paradoxical and incongruous this may seen, the paradox and incon gruity only gives point to the suggestion that the Shepherd is a Lamb, that the Leader is one of the flock, and that covers over the great teaching that the children were partakers of the flesh and blood, and He likewise partook of the same, and became in all thins like unto us, and yet without sin. Td» Leader was of the nature of the led. Thl Shepherd was the Lamb, and not only so, but the emblem suggests that for heaven as for earth Jesus Christ is the pattern Saint of all progress, and the Leader in all advance, and the further development will consist in getting nearer to Him. Lastly— Warrior Lamb. I need not remind you of the great passage in the Apocalypse in which that side of the emblem is set forth, in which Christ divides the rule with the beast, which is the animal in ourselves, and of which the Lamb is the Antagonist. Christ conquers by His sacrifices : Christ conquers by His gentleness. His meekness is all victorious. His surrender of Himself for us is the one thing which breaks the power of resistance, and makes ua yield ourselves up to Him. The victory lies with the Lamb because the Lamb is innocent and magnanimous, and is the Lamb which has been slain. But there is another side to that paradoxical mingling of incongruous opposites. The Warrior Lamb shows that under all gentleness there lies dormant the possibilities of the opposite. There is no more dreadful word in Scripture than the " wrath of the Lamb," incongruous as the juxtaposition may sound. The gentleness is there, but it mav darken into wrath. If there were no wrath there were no love. Beware, my brethren, of these terrible changes ; there is none so terrible as the wrath of repulsed gentleness and the rejected Christ, and so let my last word this morning be these—Begin with the Lamb slain. The supply cry to \ each of you, " Behold the Lamb of God which I taketh away the sins of the world." Have ■ you, like the sacrifices of old, laid your hands on His head and given Him your sins to carry? Dear friends, have you never cried, "Lamb of God which taketh away the sirs of the world, have mercy upon me?" Begin with that; bow to His enthroned Kingly authority, and let His will be your law; trust J Him as your Shepherd, and let His guidance j be your direction, and accept the food which J He prepares carefully for you. Let H/a right 1 against the beast that is in you, and onsrecmt i him by His Almighty power. Then He will be I your Friend and Shepherd and Brother, Mid ! every dear name in one, all through life ; ani \ when He leads us through the valieys of death \ on to the river of Jordan, He will be near us : j and when we open our eyes after a brief j blindness, and wipe away from our faces the cold waters, the first sight in heaven will be the Lamb in the midst of the throne, and He will lead us in good pastures, and where neither sin nor sorrow shall disturb us any more. FINDING THE MESSIAH. "Finding the Messiah is nothing new! Fortunately, no. Probably not an hour, possibly not a minute, passes in the day without some soul in some part of our globe having this happy experience. Such an event is a nappy one; and most important are the consequences that flow from it. Surely to see the Messiah will be followed by visions of angels, and the splendour and glory of heaven opening upon our souls. How various are God's ways of leading souls to tins Anointed One! Of many which may be enumerated I shall mention only one, ana it will illustrate the revealing power of toe Word of the Lord. . We were in class one morning, sitting at the feet of our beloved Gamaliel, the Kev. r. Bosworth, M.A., late of Exeter, but then classical tutor at Bristol College; and, having recited our lessons early, the professor became very communicative and anecdoncai. He had spent many years of his early item Canada. Many were the tales he would tell us students of adventures, difficulties, ana struggles which he had experienced in m Far West, in the backwoods, and the Unadian wilds. , To _, When residing in Montreal, a young Jew called upon him, being curious to see the professor on matters of Hebrew scholarship ana Jewish law. Though young then, the professor was well and widely known as a Hebraist, having mastered the Scriptures m the original so as to be able to read and translate them fluently and accurately unen onlv 12 years of age. ■ . , m(V i During his visit the young Jew informed his friend that he was on his way to vermwji to study Hebrew under the great, scholars « his native land, and to qualify hunsoN teacher of that language in some Amencra college or university. Hebrew be m< th theme of their conversation, the profess proposed that they should read W* n Q Hebrew Bibles were at hand. The Jew hg never read the fifty-third of Isaiah intM original. To that chapter they *"«£• ,/,7J read slowly and carefully. Each ver»e w» traversed as being specially sacred antt IW No comments were suggested ; no ,; ft lv proposed. The Christian led the Jw«TO and reverently, without touching * ' j controversial note, through the chapw *, sibly he watched the young Israelis keen interest, and probably the silent p> ascended that he might understand wws« a read, but no word of mouth was used; no' sentence which a listener could hare c an attempt to make a convert, , „ were closed. Both men were immediate ij their knees. After a few moments 01 P found solemnity, spent in earnest peu prayer, they rose. The prophetic done its gracious work. Jhe divine gg of the Mai of Sorrows had melted the nw , His redemptive sufferings hadl been perceived and understood. ine wo and slain One had triumphed. Ihe «>?» found the Messiah and from thai a & study went on his way rejoicing. ' con . power goes with the sacred Wortw the vince men that Jesus is the Anointed" Lord !—Wm. Parry, Sword and Trowei.