who is missing from the ranks. In the engagement of Messiah with Satan
and his allies on Calvary, Messiah’s heel was bruised, but Satan and his
allies received a mortal wound in the head. The head denotes wisdom,
cunning, power, government. The devil, sin, and death have lost their
dominion over the believer in Christ, since the achievement of Calvary.
There is now no condemnation, no fear of hell. But the serpent, though
his head is bruised, may be able to move his tail, and alarm those of
little faith. Yet it cannot last long. The wound is mortal, and the
triumph is sure. On Calvary the dragon’s head was crushed by the Captain
of our salvation; after the battle of Armageddon, his tail shall shake no
more!
There is no discharge in this war. He that enlisteth under the banner of
the cross must endure faithful until death—must not lay aside his arms
till death is swallowed up in victory. Then shall every conqueror bear
the image of the heavenly, and wear the crown instead of the cross, and
carry the palm instead of the spear. Let us be strong in the Lord, and
in the power of his might, that we may be able to stand in the evil day;
and after all the war is over, to stand accepted in the Beloved, that we
may reign with him for ever and ever!
II. It remains for us to explain, very briefly, the glorious colloquy in
the text—the interrogatives of the church, and the answers of Messiah.
How great was the wonder and joy of Mary, when she met the Master at the
tomb, clothed in immortality, where she thought to find him shrouded in
death! How unspeakable was the astonishment and rapture of the
disciples, when their Lord, whom they had so recently buried, came into
the house where they were assembled, and said—“Peace be unto you!” Such
are the feelings which the church is represented as expressing in this
sublime colloquy with the Captain of her salvation. He has travelled
into the land of tribulation; he has gone down to the dust of death; but
lo, he returns a conqueror, the golden sceptre of love in his left hand,
the iron rod of justice in his right, and on his head a crown of many
stars. The church beholds him with great amazement and delight. She
lately followed him, weeping, to the cross, and mourned over his body in
the tomb; but now she beholds him risen indeed, having destroyed death,
and him that had the power of death—that is, the devil. She goes forth
to meet him with songs of rejoicing, as the daughters of Israel went out
to welcome David, when he returned from the valley, with the head of the
giant in his hand, and the blood running down upon his raiment. The
choir of the church is divided into two bands; which chant to each other
in alternate strains. The right hand division begins the glorious
colloquy—“Who is this that cometh from Edom?” and the left takes up the
interrogative, and repeats it with a variation—“with dyed garments from
Bozrah?” “This that is glorious in his apparel?” resumes the right-hand
company—“glorious notwithstanding the tribulations he hath endured?”
“Travelling in the greatness of his strength?” responds the
left—“strength sufficient to unbar the gates of the grave, and liberate
the captives of corruption?” The celestial Conqueror pauses, and casts
upon the company of the daughters of Zion a look of infinite benignity;
and with a voice of angel melody, and more than angel majesty, he
replies—“I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save!” Now bursts the
song again, like the sound of many waters, from the right—“Wherefore art
thou red in thine apparel?” and the response rolls back in melodized
thunder from the left—“And thy garments like him that treadeth in the
wine-fat?” The Divine hero answers:—“I have trodden the wine-press
alone; and of the people there was none with me. Even Peter has left me,
with all his courage and affection; and as for John, to talk of love is
all that he can do. I have triumphed over principalities and powers. I
am wounded, but they are vanquished. Behold the blood which I have lost!
behold the spoils which I have won! Now will I mount my white horse, and
pursue after Satan, and demolish his kingdom, and send him back to the
land of darkness in everlasting chains, and all his allies shall be
exiles with him for ever. My own arm, which has gained the victory on
Calvary, and brought salvation to all my people from the sepulchre, is
still strong enough to wield the golden sceptre of love, and break my
foes on the field of Armageddon. I will destroy the works of the devil,
and demolish all his hosts; I will dash them in pieces like a potter’s
vessel. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my
redeemed is come. My compassion is stirred for the captives of sin and
death; my fury is kindled against the tyrants that oppress them. It is
time for me to open the prisons, and break off the fetters. I must
gather my people to myself. I must seek that which was lost, and bring
again that which was driven away. I must bind up that which was broken,
and strengthen that which was weak; but I will destroy the fat and the
strong; I will feed them with judgment; I will tread them in mine anger,
and trample them in my fury, and bring down their strength to the earth,
and stain all my raiment with their blood!”
Let us flee from the wrath to come! Behold, the sun is risen high on the
day of vengeance! Let us not be found among the enemies of Messiah, lest
we fall a sacrifice to his righteous indignation on the field of
Armageddon! Let us escape for our lives, for the fire-storm of his anger
will burn to the lowest hell! Let us pray for grace to lay hold on the
salvation of his redeemed! It is a free, full, perfect, glorious, and
eternal salvation. Return, ye ransomed exiles from happiness, return to
your forfeited inheritance! Now is the year of jubilee. Come to Jesus,
that your debts may be cancelled, your sins forgiven, and your persons
justified! Come, for the Conqueror of your foes is on the throne! Come,
for the trumpets of mercy are sounding! Come, for all things are now
ready!
SERMON III.
THE SMITTEN ROCK.
“_For they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them_, _and
that rock was Christ_.”—1 Cor. x. 4.
IN this chapter the apostle solemnly cautions his brethren against
apostasy, and consequent shipwreck of their spiritual privileges. His
admonitions are educed from important events in the history of the
journey of the Israelites from Egypt to the land of Canaan. He speaks of
the march of the twelve tribes out of the scene of their bondage, under
the uplifted banner of God; of their baptism unto Moses in the cloud and
in the sea, when Jehovah gloriously displayed his power in preserving
their lives between the watery ramparts which shut them in like the solid
walls of the sepulchre, while the cloud rested upon them through the deep
night, like the marble covering of the tomb; of their safe emerging on
the other side of the flood, a type of the resurrection, leaving Pharaoh
and his host to sleep in the waters till the morning of the last day,
when they shall rise without their chariots and their horses; of their
miraculous supply in the wilderness, with bread from heaven, and water
from the smitten rock, which he calls spiritual meat and spiritual drink,
because of their typical reference to the sacrificial death of Christ,
which is the spiritual life of the world; and of their subsequent
ingratitude and forgetfulness of God, notwithstanding these great
deliverances and mercies, their murmurings, idolatries, fornications, and
tempting of Christ, for which they were destroyed by the plague, slain by
fiery serpents, smitten by the angel of the Lord, and fell to the number
of three and twenty thousand in one day. “Now all these things,” he
adds, “happened unto them for ensamples, and are written for our
admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come; wherefore, let him
that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.” Thus he opens the
graves of ancient sinners, and brings before his brethren the carcasses
of those “who fell in the wilderness;” brings them into our solemn
assemblies, and hangs them up over the pulpit, the baptistery, and the
communion-table, terrible warnings against departing from the living God;
even as the censers of Korah, Dathan and Abiram were beaten up, and made
a covering for the altar, for a perpetual sign and memorial to Israel, to
keep them from the sin of those men, that they might not share their
fate.
In speaking of the smitten rock, which the apostle authorizes us to
regard as a type of Christ, we shall consider:—_First_, Its smiting by
Moses; and _Secondly_, The consequent flowing of the waters.
I. The smitten rock was a type of Christ. Messiah is the “Rock of Ages”
to his church. He is the foundation of her hope, sure and steadfast, and
her protection in times of danger and of dread. The armor and the
prowess of Egypt constituted no rock like this rock. Edom, and Moab, and
Philistia, and the seven nations of Canaan, had their gods and their
heroes; but their rock was not able to shelter them from the wrath of
Jehovah, when it came upon them like a tempest of hail. The gods that
made not the heavens and the earth are far off in the day of trouble; but
the God of Israel is “nigh at hand,” and his arm is strong to deliver.
He is the rock that stood firm and immovable, for the defence of his
people, amid the ragings of the Red Sea. Messiah is the man, who is
predicted as “a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the
tempest, and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” He can shield,
not only from the scorching sun and the scathing simoom of the desert;
but also from the fiery torments of remorse, and the ruinous judgments of
heaven. Our Lord is a rock, also, on account of the blessings which flow
from him, for the refreshment of his Israel; as “the droppings of honey
from the rock;” as “springs of water in a dry place;” as “living streams
in the desert,” and “rivers from the mountains of Lebanon.”
There are two accounts of the smiting of the rock; one in the seventeenth
chapter of Exodus, and the other in the twentieth chapter of Numbers.
From a comparison of these two accounts, it appears that the rock was
smitten at two different times; the first, as is supposed, about a year
after the egress from Egypt, and the other about a year before the
entrance into Canaan; making an intervening period of about thirty-eight
years. The war with Amalek succeeded the first; the embassy to Edom
followed the second. At the first, Miriam was alive; just before the
second is the record of her death.
It seems that the people murmured bitterly against Moses, spoke of their
superior fare in Egypt, and accused him of bringing them out into the
wilderness to kill them with thirst. This is ever the spirit of
backsliding. Those who are under its influence are apt to complain of
the burdens imposed upon them by their religion, and the injuries
occasioned to them by their brethren; and to speak uncharitably of their
spiritual leaders, instead of crying to God for help. To ask, “Is the
Lord among us?” when his word and his works, indicating either his
pleasure or his displeasure, testify that he is, is tempting God, with a
dreadful presumption.
It does not appear that Moses sinned the first time he smote the rock;
but the second time, the servant of God was evidently off his guard, and
the meekest of men “spake unadvisedly with his lips;” on account of
which, both he and Aaron were shut out of the promised land. His sin
consisted in entering into a quarrel with the people, instead of asking
God for water to quench their thirst. It appears that their chidings had
provoked him to anger, and he had lost the spirit of sympathy for their
sufferings, and his hard feelings stood like a thick wall between him and
the miracle which God was about to work for his own glory and his
people’s relief. Neither did he as God commanded him; for instead of
simply speaking to the rock, as he was bidden, he smote it twice, with
evident agitation of mind; and at the same time, bitterly reproached the
people with their rebellion.
Every minister of the gospel is a “drawer of water,” to his congregation,
from the “Spiritual Rock” which follows the church. He must be clothed
with meekness from Heaven, or the provocations of the people will be apt
to embitter his spirit. God would have us minister mercy, in the spirit
of his own mercy. “The servant of God must not strive, but be gentle
toward all men; in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if,
peradventure, God would grant them repentance unto the acknowledging of
the truth: and that they might recover themselves out of the snare of the
devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.”
The smiting of the rock was intended to open it, that the water might
flow. This prefigured the smiting of Christ, “the Rock of Ages,” and
“the Shepherd of the sheep.” The shedding of the blood of lambs, and
goats, and calves, and bullocks, for the space of four thousand years,
faintly shadowed forth the sacrificial passion of our blessed Lord.
Their groans and struggles under the slaughtering knife; the sound of the
blood, falling into the golden basins, and poured into the flames upon
the altar; the noise occasioned in cutting up the victim, and piling the
pieces upon the fire and the smoke and vapor ascending from the consuming
sacrifice to heaven; all, all, in their own way, foreshadowed the
necessity of mangling the body and shedding the blood of Messiah, that
pardoning mercy might have an open way to flow to sinners, like the water
from the smitten rock; and the agonies of those slaughtered victims were
an imperfect type of the agonies of the soul of Jesus, in the garden and
on the cross.
The smiting of a flinty rock, for the purpose of obtaining water, was a
scheme of the Divine Mind, whose ways are higher than our ways, and his
thoughts than our thoughts. It was certainly the last place to which
Moses would have gone for water; and he might have expected the stroke to
elicit sparks of fire, rather than cool refreshing streams. What eye had
not seen and ear had not heard, either of men or of angels—what had not
entered into the heart of any created being to conceive, terrestrial or
celestials—was, that the smiting of the Shepherd should save the sheep;
that the condemnation of the just should bring the unjust to God; that
the making of Messiah a curse should secure infinite blessings to
mankind; that the poverty of Jesus should enrich us, and his death raise
us to life eternal. Consuming flames of Divine indignation might have
been expected to flash upon the guilty world from every wound of the
thorns, the nails and the spear, in the sacred person of Emmanuel; but,
to the astonishment of men and angels, a tide of love and mercy ran
freely from every bleeding vein, to wash away the guilt and pollution of
human crimes, according to the determinate counsel and immutable promise
of our God.
The rock must be smitten by a rod. Had Moses been left to choose his own
instrument, he would probably have taken a hammer, or perhaps a lever;
but God commands him to take the rod. The rock would not have yielded
water to any other instrument than the rod that smote the waters of
Egypt, and turned them into blood. This rod was an emblem of the
sovereignty of God over Israel, and is therefore called “the rod of God,
which the Lord gave unto Moses”—as his deputy governor—“to lead Israel,
and to work miracles before their eyes.” It was also a symbol of the
royal law of Heaven; which, prior to the fall, was a rod of life; but
afterward became a rod of iron, to break in pieces the offender—an angry
serpent, to sting the transgressor with dreadful torments; and finally,
when Christ endured the curse, and honored the violated mandate, by his
death upon the tree, it was transformed again into a guiding and
correcting rod. As the rock would have yielded water under no other
stroke than that of “the rod of God,” so the sufferings of Christ would
have been ineffectual, had they not happened under the law of the Father,
and according to the counsel of Infinite Wisdom. When Isaac was about to
be offered up on mount Moriah, the wood, the fire, and the knife, must
all come from his father’s house, and the dreadful deed must be done by
his father’s hand. So Jesus must die in no ordinary or accidental way.
He must not suffer himself to be slain by the sword of Herod, nor cast
over the brow of the hill by the people. He must receive the mortal cup
from no other hand than that of the Father. He must die the appointed
death; at the appointed time; in the appointed place, without the camp;
and in the appointed manner, by hanging on a tree. The wreath of thorns,
the scarlet robe, the nails, the cross, the spear, and even the vinegar
offered him in his agony, were all according to his Father’s counsel. He
knew the necessity, and said—“Thy will be done!” The Shepherd of Israel
would bow under no other stroke than that of the Lord of Hosts. A
cradle, a cross, and a grave, all of his Father’s appointing, must Jesus
have, in order to open a fountain of living water to the world.
The rock must be smitten in a public manner, in the sight of the sun, and
before all the elders of Israel, that God might be sanctified in the eyes
of his people. This was intended to foreshadow the publicity of the
death of Christ, which took place during one of the great public
festivals of the Jews, in the presence of nearly the whole nation, and on
the hill Calvary; and to denote the proclamation of Christ crucified
throughout the world, as the true propitiation and object of faith, to be
looked upon by Jews and Gentiles, to the softening of the heart, and the
flowing of repentant tears, according to the prophecy—“They shall look on
him whom they have pierced, and mourn for him, as one mourneth for an
only son.” The Spirit of grace directs the eyes of men to the cross,
upon which the prophet Isaiah, with transcendent sublimity of language,
describes the Saviour as passing from Calvary to the grave, from the
grave to the empyrean, and thence back again to earth, crying—“Look unto
me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth; for I am God, and beside
me there is no Savior!”
The rock must be smitten in the presence of God. “Behold, I will stand
before thee there on the rock in Horeb.” (Ex. xvii. 6.) He stood upon
the rock in Horeb, though invisible, in the glory of his loving-kindness
and his power, to guide the hand of his servant Moses, and open a source
of timely succor to his perishing people. But when the rod of the law
smote the Rock of our salvation, when the curse fell upon the sinner’s
Substitute and Surety, then God stood forth before the world upon the
rock of Calvary, amid the darkened heavens, the trembling earth, and the
opening sepulchres, as if all the machinery of nature had been suddenly
disordered and disorganized—stood forth in the plenitude of his power,
his wisdom, his justice, his mercy, and his truth, to prosper the work of
man’s redemption, and open a channel through which the river of life
might flow out to a famishing race. On Calvary still he stands, with the
cup of salvation in his hand, and streams of living water rolling at his
feet, and cries—“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters!”
According to the command of God, the rock was to be smitten but once.
Once smitten, it needed only to be spoken to; and, though it was more
than thirty years afterward, it would yield forth its water. But Moses,
provoked to anger by the murmurings and complainings of the people,
transcended the Divine injunction, and though he had once smitten the
rock, smote it again; yea, when he should have spoken to it only, smote
it twice with his rod. This was his sin, for which God would not permit
him to enter the promised land. Christ has been once smitten, and wo to
those who smite him again! He has once offered himself a sacrifice, and
once entered into the holy place, having finished his work of atonement,
and made an end of sin, and superseded the sacrifices of the law.
Henceforth, ye Jews, relinquish your burnt-offerings, your
meat-offerings, your drink-offerings, your peace-offerings; and trust no
longer in beasts, and birds, and flour, and oil; but in “the Lamb of God,
that taketh away the sin of the world.” Crucify him afresh no more, O ye
backsliders; for “there remaineth no other sacrifice for sin!” Smite him
not again, lest he swear unto you in his wrath, as unto Moses, that ye
shall not enter into his rest!
II. Having spoken of the smiting, let us now look at the result, the
flowing of the waters; a timely mercy to “the many thousands of Israel,”
on the point of perishing in the desert; shadowing forth a far greater
mercy, the flowing of living waters from the “spiritual rock,” which is
Christ.
In the death of our Redeemer, we see three infinite depths moved for the
relief of human misery; the love of the Father, the merit of the Son, and
the energy of the Holy Spirit. These are the depths of wonder whence
arise the rivers of salvation.
The waters flowed in the presence of the whole assembly. The agent was
invisible, but his work was manifest. * * * * * * * * * *
The water flowed in great abundance, filling the whole camp, and
supplying all the people. Notwithstanding the immense number, and the
greatness of their thirst, there was enough for each and for all. The
streams ran in every direction to meet the sufferers, and their rippling
murmur seemed to say—“Open thy mouth, and I will fill it.” Look to the
cross! See there the gracious fountain opened, and streams of pardoning
and purifying mercy flowing down the rock of Calvary, sweeping over the
mount of Olives, and cleaving it asunder, to make a channel for the
living waters to go out over the whole world, that God may be glorified
among the Gentiles, and all the ends of the earth may see his salvation!
The water flowed from the rock, not pumped by human labor, but drawn by
the hand of God. It was the same power, that opened the springs of mercy
upon the cross. It was the wisdom of God that devised the plan, and the
mercy of God that furnished the victim. His was the truth and love that
gave the promise by the prophet—“In that day there shall be a fountain
opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for
sin and uncleanness.” His was the unchanging faithfulness that fulfilled
it in his Son—“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but
according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and
renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus
Christ our Lord.” Our salvation is wholly of God; and we have no other
agency in the matter, than the mere acceptance of his proffered grace.
The water flowed in twelve different channels; and, according to Dr.
Pococke, of Scotland, who visited the place, the deep traces in the rock
are visible to this day. But the twelve streams, one for each tribe, all
issued from the same fountain, in the same rock. So the great salvation
flowed out through the ministry of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, and
went abroad over all the earth. But the fountain is one. All the
apostles preached the same Savior, and pointed to the same cross.
“Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name
under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved.” We must come
to this spring, or perish.
The flowing of the waters was irresistible by human power. Who can close
the fountain which God hath opened? Can Edom, or Moab, or Sihon, or Og,
dam up the current which Jehovah hath drawn from the rock? Can Caiaphas,
and all the Jews, aided by the Prince of this world—can all the powers of
earth and hell combined—arrest the work of redemption, and dry up the
fountain of mercy that Christ is opening on Calvary? As soon might they
dry up the Atlantic, and stop the revolutions of the globe. It is
written, and must be fulfilled. Christ must suffer, and enter into his
glory—must be lifted up, and draw all men unto him—and repentance and
remission of sins must be preached in his name among all nations,
beginning at Jerusalem.