'They will reverence My Son.' May we not say this is a divine hope? It
is not worth while to make a difficulty of the bold representation. It
is but parallel to all the dealings of God with men; and it sets forth
the possibility that He _might_ have won Israel back to God and to
obedience. It suggests the good faith and the earnestness with which
God sent Him, and He came, to bring Israel back to God. But we are not
to suppose that this divine hope excluded the divine purpose of His
death or was inconsistent with that, for He goes on to speak of His
death as if it were past (verse 8). This shows how distinctly He
foreknew it.
Its highest aspect is not here, for it was not needed for the parable.
'With wicked hands ye have crucified,' etc., is true, as well as 'I
lay it down of Myself.'
Let us lay to heart the solemn love which warns by prophesying, tells
what men are going to do in order that they may _not_ do it (and what
He will do in order that He may _not_ have to do it). And let us yield
ourselves to the power of Christ's death as God's magnet for drawing
us all back to Him; and as certain to bring about at last the
satisfaction of the Father's long-frustrated hope: 'They will
reverence my Son,' and the fulfilment of the Son's long-unaccomplished
prediction: 'I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men
unto Me.'