"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judæa, in the days of
Herod the king, behold there came wise men to Jerusalem, saying,
Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his
star in the east, and are come to worship him."
Was the Messiah to be the King of the Jews alone? No; he was for the
world; he was the Good Shepherd of nations, and declared that he
had "other sheep, not of this fold."
It seems to be most striking that, in the poetical and beautiful
account of the birth of Jesus, there is record of two distinct
classes who come to pay him homage--not only the simple-minded and
devout laboring people of the Jews, but also the learned sages of
the Gentiles.
There are constant intimations throughout the Old Testament that
God's choice of the Jews was no favoritism; that he had not
forgotten other races, but was still the God and Father of mankind;
and that he chose Israel not to aggrandize one people, but to make
that people his gift-bearers to the whole world.
There are distinct evidences in the Old Testament that the coming
Saviour was caring for others beside the Jewish race. Witness
his gracious promise to the slave Hagar that he would bless her
descendants. In the very family line from which Messiah was to be
born a loving and lovely Moabite woman was suffered to be introduced
as the near ancestress of King David, and the name of the Gentile
Ruth stands in the genealogy of Jesus as a sort of intimation that
he belonged not to a race but to the world. In a remarkable passage
of Isaiah (xliv. 28, xlv. 1, 4, 5) Jehovah, proclaiming his supreme
power, declares himself to be He
"That saith of Cyrus--
He is my shepherd,
He shall perform all my pleasure.
Even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built;
And to the Temple, Thy foundations shall be laid.
Thus saith the Lord to his anointed,
To Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden.
. . . . . . . .
For Jacob my servant's sake,
For Israel mine elect,
I have called thee by my name:
I have surnamed thee, _though thou hast not known me_.
I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me:
I girded thee, though thou hast not known me."
The Babylonian captivity answered other purposes beside the
punishment and restoration of the Jewish nation to the worship of
the true God. It was a sort of prophetic "Epiphany," in which the
Messianic aspirations of the Jews fell outside of their own nation,
like sparks of fire on those longings which were common to the human
race. Even the Jewish prophet spoke of the Messiah as "The Desire of
all Nations."
And this desire and the hope of its fulfillment were burning
fervently in the souls of all the best of the Gentile nations; for
not among the Jews alone, but among all the main races and peoples
of antiquity, have there been prophecies and traditions more or less
clear of a Being who should redeem the race of man from the power of
evil and bring in an era of peace and love.
The yearning, suffering heart of humanity formed to itself such
a conception out of its own sense of need. Poor helpless man
felt himself an abandoned child, without a Father, in a scene of
warring and contending forces. The mighty, mysterious, terrible God
of nature was a being that he could not understand, felt unable
to question. Job in his hour of anguish expressed the universal
longing:--
"Oh that I knew where I might find him! I would come even to his
seat, I would order my cause before him, I would fill my mouth
with arguments. Would he plead against me with his great power?
Nay, but he would put strength in me."