400 CHRIST'S WITNESS TO HIMSELF
up in this : By God's spirit I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." ^
2. Christ is at once the Koot and the Offshoot, the Beginning and the End of the whole economy associated with the Davidic family. In the Messiah, the latest Scion of the House of David, its earliest ideals and hopes are realized. He is the " Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh," the substance of ancient prophecy, the long-promised and looked-for King. Thus He is connected on the one side with earth, on the other with heaven, " Immanuel, God with us," touched with a feeling of our infirmities, mighty to save. The root of David? Yes, the source of David's humanity, that of God from which David and all else that we call human has come forth. What an astounding claim, yet unmistakable ! Before David was, Christ is, the very Christ who in the course of ages became manifest to the world as the Jesus born of David's line, Alpha and Omega, first and last. Tf, in any sense, Jesus is the root of human nature, as well as the flower thereof, it is evident that we are of lofty lineage, whether we realize it or not.
^ These New Testament applications of the title, Son of David, are in close harmony with the Old Testament description of the Messiah. David was the founder of the kingdom of Israel. Whenever in later centuries the nation and its welfare were in the mind, the thought naturally turned to David. When the house of David no longer ruled, and the kingdom was shattered, prophets and singers lamented the misfortunes that had overtaken David and his house. When their hopefulness and faith in God expressed itself in visions of a bright future, they naturally spoke of a second David, a branch of his house, who should restore the nation to its former prosperity. As the past, and especially David's rule, grew fairer by contrast with the dismal present, so the new kingdom of David in the future was pictured in extrava- gant colours. The Kingdom should extend over the whole earth, irresistibly, triumphantly. But this conquest was not conquest for conquest's sake. It was a process without which the longed- for prosperity could, in their imagination, not be realized. It was but an incident in the larger blessedness of the future.^
^ As you look full at the faQade of Amiens Cathedral in front,
* G. Carlyle, A Memoir of Adolph Saphir, 228.
2 0. H. Gates, in TJie Dictionary of Christ and the Oospels, ii. 668.
REVELATION xxii. i6 401
the statues which fill the minor porches are either obscured in their narrower recesses or withdrawn behind each other so as to be unseen. And the entire mass of the front is seen, literally, as built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone. Literally that ; for the receding Porch is a deep " angulus," and its mid-pillar is the " Head of the Corner."
Built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, that is to say of the Prophets who foretold Christ, and the Apostles who declared Him. Though Moses was an Apostle, of God, he is not here — though Elijah was a Prophet, of God, he is not here. The voice of the entire building is that of the Heaven at the Trans- figuration. " This is my beloved Son, hear ye him."
There is yet another and a greater prophet still, who, as it seems at first, is not here. Shall the people enter the gates of the temple, singing, " Hosanna to the Son of David " ; and see no image of His father, then ? — Christ Himself declare, " I am the root and the offspring of David " ; and yet the Eoot have no sign near it of its Earth ?
Not so. David and his Son are together. David is the pedestal of the Christ. The statue of David is only two-thirds life-size, occupying the niche in front of the pedestal. He holds his sceptre in his right hand, the scroll in his left. King and Prophet, type of all Divinely right doing, and right claiming, and right proclaiming, kinghood, for ever. The entire monolith is one of the noblest pieces of Christian sculpture in the world. ^
II.
The Morning Star.
Both in the Gospels and in the Book of Revelation, when our Lord uses symbolical language about Himself, He uses such symbols as all can understand ; they are universal in their range and common to all men. " The morning star " is one of them ; it shines for all, and all men know it, and recognize it with a greeting of welcome. The light by which we live is the true light of the universe. It is not for us alone, but for all who do not acknow- ledge it as yet.
1. Why should Christ speak of Himself as the Star? We may be perfectly sure that the word, with all its radiant beauty 1 Ruskin, The Bible of Amiens, ch. iv. § 30 ( Works, icxziii. 144). REV. — 26
402 CHRIST'S WITNESS TO HIMSELF
is no mere flight of fancy. Prophecy, not poetry, underlies these last oracles of the Bible ; and among the prophecies in which stars form the imagery there is but one which can be thought to point to Messiah — the prophecy of Balaam (Num. xxiv. 17). Balaam had heard, among " the words of God," of a mysterious Person, or at least of a mysterious Power, strong to destroy and save; figured to his soul in vision as a Star, destined in other days to appear out of Israel ; and the belief of the Jewish Church, in the lifetime of Jesus, certainly was that the Star of that pre- diction was the King Messiah. No doubt the import of Balaam's words has been variously explained ; but if we believe this utter- ance in the Apocalypse to be a Divine reality, we are safe in believing along with it, under guidance of the fact that no other similar prediction fairly offers, that it was of Messiah that Balaam had heard in " the words of God," and that he had seen Messiah, in " the vision of the Almighty," as the Star of Jacob.