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النشر الإلكتروني

SERMON XIV.

THE HUMILIATION OF THE SON OF GOD.

PSALM xl. 8, 9, 10.

Sacrifice and meat offering thou wouldest not: but mine ears hast thou opened. Burnt offerings and sacrifice for sin hast thou not required: then said I, Lo, I come. In the volume of the book it is written of me, that I should fulfil Thy will, O my God: I am content to do it; yea, Thy law is within my heart.

THAT this Psalm is strictly prophetical of the humiliation and obedience which the Son of God should manifest in the achievement of man's redemption; and, consequently, a fit Psalm to be selected by the Church in the celebration of this day's service', is a fact which, if there were no other evidence to establish it, might safely be allowed to rest on the clear and explicit testimony to that effect, supplied

1 Preached on Good Friday.

in this morning's Epistle. A comparison is therein drawn by the Apostle between the sacrifices under the Law, which were but " a shadow of good things to come,” and “the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The former, he reminds us, were "offered year by year continually ;" and showed from the very need of their constant recurrence, that they could never “make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the Volume of the Book it is written of me) to do Thy will, O God. Above when he said sacrifice and offering, and burnt offerings, and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the Law; then said he, lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all1."

'Heb. x. 1-10.

Now, the reference which the Apostle here makes to the fortieth Psalm, and to that portion of it which I have chosen for the text, is too plain to be misunderstood. It is quite decisive as to the meaning of the prophecy contained in it; and proves that the words spoken by the Psalmist must be understood as spoken in the person of Christ. There is one point, however, deserving our notice here; and that is the apparent discrepancy between the terms employed by the Psalmist, and those quoted by the Apostle. For, when the former speaks thus, "Sacrifice and burnt offering thou wouldest not: but mine ears hast thou opened;" the latter quotes it in this manner, "Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me." This is a discrepancy however more of form than of meaning. The words of the Psalmist, it must be remembered, are translated directly from the Hebrew text; whereas those of the Apostle are translated from the clause as it stands in the Septuagint, or Greek version of the Old Testament. There are commentators, indeed, who have attempted to reconcile the wide difference that exists between the original Hebrew and the translated Greek, by conjectural emendations in the text of the former1; but I incline to the opinions of those who believe, that,

1 Kennicott and Peirce may be referred to, among our own divines, as offering the most ingenious conjectures upon the passage in question.

notwithstanding the disagreement of verbal expression, the meaning conveyed in each clause is identically the same; and that, a meaning indicative of the perfect obedience of the Son of God to His heavenly Father's will.

In order that we may examine the reasons which have led them to arrive at this conclusion, it would be well to refer to that passage in Isaiah's prophecy, which has already been recited in this House of Prayer during the services of this holy week; and which gives so faithful a picture of the coming sorrows of the Redeemer. "The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting; for the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded"." Now, the phrase in the outset of this passage, corresponding exactly with that in the text, may justly be understood as implying a solemn preparation of the whole body for suffering patiently all the hardships that were to be inflicted upon it. By a very common figure of speech, a part is put for the whole; the single feature of the ear for all the members of the body; and that, because the ear is the sense of discipline, and possesses, when

1 The portion of Scripture appointed for the Epistle on Tuesday before Easter.

2 Isaiah 1. 5—7.

opened, both the faculty of quickness in hearing, and of faithfulness in retaining, and thus enabling the whole man to comply with, the lessons of obedience. The metaphor contained in the expression is borrowed from the practice of the potter, who perforates, and kneads, and moulds, to his own purposes, the earth of which he makes his vessel. Even so the Almighty Lord God, the former or fashioner of all things, is represented as opening the ear', or, (as the Greek translators have rendered it,

1 I subjoin the interpretation of the passage given by Genebrard, and quoted with commendation by Dr. Jackson; but which, from the present scarcity of that author's works, may not be so well known as it deserves. 'Aures mihi aperuisti, id est, corpus, per Synecdochen, è Paulo Heb. x. Mihi aptasti corpus humanum in utero virgineo. Rabbini non satis perceptâ metaphorâ, Aures fodisti sive aperuisti mihi, ad tuæ obtemperandum voluntati aurem revelasti, retexisti, ab aure abstulisti velum et tegmen, ut acutius audiret. Effecisti ut te audirem, ac tuæ voluntati libens parerem. Me docilem et obsequentem ad audiendum reddidisti. Chald. Aures ad auscultanda tua præcepta formasti mihi. Nostris congruenter. Quia enim agitur de corporatione sive incarnatione Domini, est metaphora simul et synecdoche, ad quorum troporum difficultatem explanandam Apostolus appositissimè posuit, Corpus aptasti mihi. Est enim primùm metaphora à figulis, qui manu fodicant et ducunt argillam è quâ cupiunt vas aptare, currente rotâ. Quare Deus et figulus, et fictor, et plastes nuncupatur, ut alludatur ad Genes. ii. quando ex humo humanum corpus duxit. Est deinde synecdoche, pars pro toto, aures pro corpore: sed aurium præsertim meminit, quià de obedientiâ agebatur."— Jackson's Works, Vol. ii. B. viii. s. iv.

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