name there forever; and Mine eyes and Mine heart shall * be there perpetually." Through Jeremiah Jehovah said, "I will be the God of all the families of Israel and they shall be My people." And again, “I will gather them [the Jews] out of all countries whither I have driven them in Mine anger, . and I will bring them again unto this place [Jerusalem], and I will cause them to dwell safely; and they shall be My people and I will be their God."1

By the mouth of Ezekiel Jehovah said to Jerusalem: "I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant." "In Mine holy mountain. there shall all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, serve Me.” “I . will take you [the Jews] from among the heathen and gather you out of all countries and will bring you into your own land." "I will make them [the Jews and Israelites] one nation, in the land upon the mountains of Israel. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob My servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they and their children and their children's children forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever.

I will be their God and they shall be My people. And the heathen shall know that I, the Lord, do sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary shall be in the midst of them forevermore." "I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever." Amos tells us that 'Jehovah declared: "I will bring again the captivity of My people of Israel, and they shall build up the waste cities and inhabit them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they

in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God." Isaiah tells us that "the Lord shall comfort Zion." Through Jeremiah the Jews received this message from Jehovah: “Fear not thou, O My servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel; for, behold, I will save thee from afar off, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make him afraid. Fear thou not, O Jacob My servant, saith the Lord; for I am with thee.”

Several passages in the Old Testament promise that the heathen shall worship at Jerusalem; but they are relatively few and they mean ouly that the heathen should submit themselves to the Mosaic customs. Thus Zechariah said, “Many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord." "Everyone that is left of the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of the tabernacles." And Isaiah declared: "Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities. Thine eyes shall see a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken." "And the sons of strangers shall build thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee. For the nation and kingdom that will not preserve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. call thee 'The city of the Lord, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.' Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will makę thee an eternal excellency.""

They shall

The evangelists mention many predictions of minor events in the career of the Messiah, such as that he should be born in Bethlehem, that he should be taken to Egypt, that he should be a man of sorrows, that he should ride on an ass, that he should bear the sins of his people, that his garment should be divided among his persecutors, and so forth; but these so-called messianic predictions are puerile interpretations of passages which had no reference to the Messiah.

The Jews, while under the dominion of Rome, made a habit of reading the messianic predictions in their synagogues, and took delight in the anticipation of their fulfillment. Every generation hoped to see the coming of the Messiah, as warrior, conqueror, and king, worthy, by his success, to be considered the equal of his ancestor David, who was reputed to have been the most powerful monarch of his time. After Judea became a Roman province, it was evident that the Messiah could not succeed unless he were stronger than Rome. He would therefore carry his arms from the Euphrates to the Atlantic. He would rule over the known world. Popular inference gave to him universal dominion. Otherwise the messianic expectation of the Jews agreed with the messianic prophecies cited in the preceding section. The messiah who should re-establish the monarchy and its splendor was to be succeeded by other messiahs, his descendants in the direct male line, who should reign in Jerusalem until the end of the world.

There was no expectation that the messiah was to be a religious teacher, a redeemer from sin, an incarnate God, or the founder of a universal religion. He was to have no Levitical blood, no sacerdotal authority. He would have no more right to reform the religion of Judea than

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a son of Aaron would have had to usurp the crown. There is no prophecy in the Old Testament that the law of Moses was temporary in its authority, crude in its conceptions, or susceptible of improvement or purification. On the contrary, the books of the law and the prophets explicitly declare in many passages that the ancient mode of worship should be maintained forever. Moses said, "These are the statutes and judgments which ye shall observe all the days that ye live upon the earth." Elsewhere he added, "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it." And again he said, “Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them." In a hundred different verses of the Bible the ceremonial observances of the Mosaic system are declared to be essential parts of the everlasting covenant between Jehovah and Israel. Micah, one of the late prophets, promised that "all people will walk ‘everyone in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord [Jehovah] our God forever and ever." There was to be no community of faith with the alien; no church including all men; no religious fellowship with the heathen; no abandonment of the Jewish hatred of the Gentiles, whose riches they would eat, and upon whom their god would "execute vengeance in anger and fury."

SEC. 529. Jesus Christ.-Jesus claimed to be the Messiah of Jewish prophecy. Peter said to him, “Thou art the Messiah;" and Jesus admitted that he was. When the Samaritan woman spoke to him of the Messiah, he replied to her, "I, that speak unto thee, am he." Before the high priest, to the question, "Art thou the Christ?" his response was, "I am." He claimed to be

king of the Jews. The third evangelist tells us that when the annunciation was made to Mary, the angel told her that Jehovah would give to her son "the throne of his father David." At the beginning of the public career of Jesus, Nathaniel said to him, "Thou art the king of Israel," and as this title was not directly repudiated, it was indirectly accepted. He said to his apostles that when he should sit "in the throne of his glory," "ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." When asked by Pilate, "Art thou the king of the Jews?" Jesus replied, “I am." The response as rendered in the authorized and revised English versions is, "Thou sayest," which, in our tongue, means nothing. The correct translation is given by Norton, and is implied in the remarks attributed to Jesus in the fourth gospel. In his first address to the disciples at Jerusalem, after the crucifixion, Peter said that God swore “with an oath to him [David] that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne." Jesus spoke of the prophecies that the Messiah should be a descendant of David, and should be born in the town of Bethlehem, David's town; and he repeatedly referred to the scriptural prophecies relating to himself, meaning that they indicated his messianic character; though the evangelists, when mentioning these references, do not say what was to be proved by them.'

In his epistles Paul habitually attaches the title Christ to the proper name Jesus, calling him either Jesus Christ, or Christ Jesus. In his address at Pentecost Peter, according to Acts, spoke of him as Christ. The New Testament is pervaded throughout with the idea that Jesus was the Messiah of Jewish prophecy, and that his messianic character carried with it a right to speak with