The Prophetical Glory of the Redeemer

By Octavius Winslow


These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him. John 12:41


Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him. John 12:41


Isaiah was referring to Jesus when he made this prediction, because he was given a vision of the Messiah's glory. John 12:41


How true is it that "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy!" "To Him gave all the prophets witness." Of Him, as of one only glorious person, they delighted to testify- of Him, as of one only precious subject, they delighted to speak. Never did the Divine Spirit rest upon them with greater power- never did they strike their prophetic harps to strains so high, so rich, so sweet, as when Emmanuel was their theme. And is it too much to say, that magnificent as is the drapery in which their writings are clothed- gorgeous as is the imagery, and sublime the doctrines, in which these announcements are invested, they would possess no beauty, glory, or sweetness, but for- Jesus?



The confidence and the joy of the Church has ever been the prospective view she has had of the coming Messiah. Through the long vista of ages she saw Him advancing; and though the vision was distant and dim, yet, persuaded of the promise, she embraced it, and rested in it, believing that God was able as He was willing to make good all that He had in covenant mercy pledged to do. The incarnate God was her hope, her joy, her trust; and living or dying, the "Consolation of Israel" was the pole-star on which the eye of her faith was ever and immovably fixed.


It pleased God to raise up a school of prophets, whom He endowed with extraordinary powers of inspiration, filling them with the Holy Spirit, whose especial office it was to feed this desire, to animate this hope, and to strengthen this expectation of faith, by keeping the glorious truth of the approaching Savior constantly and prominently before the eye of the Church.


 "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what person, or what period of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them did signify, when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow."



That we are justified in looking into the prophetical Scriptures for peculiar revelations of the glory of Christ will appear clear from a reference to a few passages bearing upon this subject. Our Lord's conversation with the two disciples journeying to Emmaus is strikingly in point. In the first place, Jesus gently chides them for their lack of faith in the prophetical writings relating to Himself. "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken." He then passes to the great subject before Him, "And beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." The same day, and on another occasion, appearing in their assembled midst, "He said unto them, These are the words which I spoke unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me. Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures."


In a conversation He held with the Jews, how pointedly did He refer to His glory as beaming from beneath the veil of the Mosaic writings! "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuses you, even Moses, in whom you trust. For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote of me." And well did He exhort them to "search the Scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." Thus invited and encouraged, let us address ourselves to the pleasing task of drawing aside the prophetical veil, thus revealing the hidden glories of our Emmanuel. The unfolding of this subject will be found to present a brief exposition of those striking words of the evangelist: "These things said Elijah, when he saw His glory, and spoke of Him."


We commence with the testimony which the prophetical Scriptures bring to the doctrine of our Lord's Deity. Clearer intimations of the Divinity of Christ are nowhere found than in the Old Testament writings.


 "In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of Him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."


What an august revelation of the glory of Christ's Godhead was this which broke upon the view of the lowly prophet! How instructive is each particular of his beatific vision! Mark the profound humility of the seraphim- they veiled with their wings their faces and their feet. They were in the presence of Jesus. They saw the King in His beauty, and covered themselves.



Bat the effect of this view of our Lord's Divine glory upon the mind of the prophet, is still more impressive: "Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips ... for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." What prostrated his soul thus low in the dust? What filled him with this self-abasement? What overwhelmed him with this keen sense of his vileness? Oh, it was the unclouded view he had of the essential glory of the Son of God! And thus will it ever be. The beaming forth of Christ's glory in the soul, reveals its hidden evil; the knowledge of this evil lays the believer low before God with the confession, "I abhor myself. Woe is me, for I am undone!"


Beloved, let this truth be ever present to your mind, that as we increasingly see glory in Jesus, we shall increasingly see that there is no glory in ourselves. Jesus is the Sun which reveals the pollutions and defilements that are within.


The chambers of abomination are all closed until Christ shines in upon the soul. Oh, then it is these deep-seated and long-veiled deformities are revealed; and we, no longer gazing with a complaisant eye upon self, sink in the dust before God, overwhelmed with shame, and covered with confusion of face. Holy posture! Blessed spectacle! A soul prostrate before the glory of the incarnate God! All high and lofty views of its own false glory annihilated by clear and close views of the true glory of Jesus. As when the sun appears, all the less lights vanish into darkness, so when Jesus rises in noontide glory upon the soul, all other glory retires, and He alone fixes the eye, and fills the mind. "With twain they covered their faces, and with twain they covered their feet." Their own perfections and beauty were not to be seen in the presence of the glory of the Lord. How much more profound should be the humility and self-abasement of man!


Have we covered ourselves- not with the pure wings of the holy cherubim- but with sackcloth and ashes, before the Lord? Have we sought to veil- not our beauties, for beauties we have none; but our innumerable and flagrant deformities, even the "spots upon our feasts of love," the sins of our best and holiest things; and, renouncing all self-glory, have we sunk, as into nothing, before God? Oh, we are yet strangers to the vision of Christ's glory, if we have not! If the constellations of human gifts and attainments, distinctions and usefulness, on which unsanctified and unmortified self so delights to gaze, have not retired into oblivion, the Sun of Righteousness has yet to rise upon our souls with healing in His wings.


His glory as the God-man is reflected with equal clearness from the prophetical page. Thus was it predicted that the eternal Son of God should assume an inferior and a human form. "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Emmanuel." "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Could any truth be more emphatically or distinctly stated? Oh, what love in the Father does it unfold, that not only He should have promised His dear Son, but that He should have held out that promise at so distant a period, and in such terms, as would lay an unequivocal foundation for the faith, hope, and joy of the saints, in all ages of the world!



His Divine anointing, constituting an important feature of His official glory, and opening a channel of the most costly blessing to the Church, forms a distinct and sacred theme of the prophetical writings. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me." "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him." This anointing was upon the Redeemer, in infinite richness and fragrance. "God gives not the Spirit by measure unto him." As essentially Jehovah, He needed it not; but as the great High Priest, and the mediatorial Head of His "Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that fills all in all," it was necessary that the anointing oil should be upon Him in its utmost plenitude. As one with Him, all the members alike participate.


 "It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went to the skirts of his garment;" even to the lowest believer- Ah! and he that lies the lowest, obtains the most of this "precious ointment," as it descends from Jesus: the hand of faith that touches but the hem of His garment, receives from Him who was "anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows." Dear reader, are you professedly one with Jesus and His saints? then seek, oh diligently seek, a large and still larger degree of this holy and fragrant anointing. Rest not short of it. Do not be satisfied to proceed another step without it. Do not be content with a mere profession, having a name to live, yet lacking all the essential evidences of real life, while discovering many of the fearful attributes of actual death.