foretel the elevation of Eliakim to his post and office. Tims was our Lord appointed to succeed the governors of the Jewish nation, who, both in the civil and ecclesiastical departments, had abused their trust, and rendered themselves unworthy to be continued in it. Humiliating in the extreme are the descrip- tions which the prophet gives of the rulers both in church and state ^: and the time was coming, when God would fulfil his word, in " raising up in their place a faithful priest, who should do all his will, and another king who should reign over the house of David for ever*'." " With their robe was He to be clothed, and with their girdle was he to be strengthened ; and their government was to be committed into his hands'^;" and this too, not only according to tlie commandment of God, but by the immediate agency of his overruling Providence ^]
The authority with which they were invested was supreme —
[To mark his office, Eliakim was to have " the key of the house of David laid upon his shoulder, and then to exercise the the most unlimited authority :" nor was he ever to be removed, like Shebna; (whose boasted security would soon fail him;) but he was to be " a nail fastened in a sure place."
Now our blessed Lord applies to himself the very words here used in reference to Eliakim*"; thereby shewing that Ehakim was indeed a type of him ; and that what was spoken of EUakim only in a figure, was really, and in the strictest sense, applica- ble to himself; the power of both being uncontroUahle and iinalterahle. " All power in heaven and in earth is committed unto Christs;" in every thing that relates to the kingdom of nature or of grace, " he openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth, and no man openeth." None are exalted, or disgraced, either in this world, or the world to come, but agreeably to the orders which he issues : nor can any, even in the smallest degree, resist his will : " He doeth according to his will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth ; nor can any stay his hand, or say to him, What doest thou ? " Nor will the lapse of ages effect any change on him : " He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever^':" " He is a nail fastened in a sure place." Seated on his holy hill of Zion, He laughs at the impotent combinations of men and devils, and has all his
^ Isai. i. 5. and Ivi. 10 — 12.
<= 1 Sam. ii. 30, 35. and Jer. xxiii. 2, 5.
^ Compare ver. 21, with Rev. i. 13. Isai. xi. 5. and ix. 6.
^ As this Avas marked in the case of Eliakim, (ver. 19 — 21.) so in that of Christ by the raising him from the dead, and utterly destroy- ing the Jewish poHty.
*■ Rev. ill. 7. g Matt, xxviii. 18. ^ Heb. xiii. 8.