182. Dan. vii. 13.
In what has been stated, no reference has been made to the final conquests of Messiah, to
His reign with all its wonders, or to the subdual of all nation - in short, to what are
commonly called 'the last things.' This will be treated in another connection. Nor is it
contented that, whatever individuals may have expected, the Synagogue taught the
doctrine of the Divine Personality of the Messiah, as held by the Christian Church. On
the other hand, the cumulative evidence jus t presented must leave on the mind at least
this conviction, that the Messiah expected was far above the conditions of the most
exalted of God's servants, even His Angels; in short, so closely bordering on the Divine,
that it was almost impossible to distinguish Him therefrom. In such circumstances, it only
needed the personal conviction, that He, Who taught and wrought as none other, was
really the Messiah, to kindle at His word into the adoring confession, that He was indeed
'the Son of the Living God.' And once that point reached, the mind, looking back through
the teaching of the Synagogue, would, with increasing clearness, perceive that, however
ill- understood in the past, this had been all along the sum of the whole Old Testament.
Thus, we can understand alike the preparedness for, and yet the gradualness of conviction
on this point; then, the increasing clearness with which it emerged in the consciousness of
the disciples; and, finally, the unhesitating distinctness with which it was put forward in
Apostolic teaching as the fundamental article of belief to the Church Catholic.183
183. It will be noticed, that the cumulative argument presented in the foregoing pages
follows closely that in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews; only, that the latter
carries it up to its final conclusion, that the Messiah was truly the Son of God, while it
has been our purpose simply to state, what was the expectation of the ancient Synagogue,
not what it should have been according to the Old Testament.
Book II
FROM THE MANGER IN BETHLEHEM TO THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN
Chapter 6
THE NATIVITY OF JESUS THE MESSIAH
(St. Matthew 1:25; St. Luke 2:1-20.)
SUCH then was 'the hope of the promise made of God unto the fathers,' for which the
twelve tribes, 'instantly serving (God) night and day,' longed - with such vividness, that
they read it in almost every event and promise; with such earnestness, that it ever was the
burden of their prayers; with such intensity, that many and long centuries of
disappointment have not q uenched it. Its light, comparatively dim in days of sunshine and
calm, seemed to burn brightest in the dark and lonely nights of suffering, as if each gust
that swept over Israel only kindled it into fresh flame.