Ten Theophanies

William M. Baker

• Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9783849650315
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematic Theology & Ethics

The author of this book is better known by his novels than by his religious writings. If he carries his vivid and illuminating imagination into a work so different in its nature from these, as the one before us, the result is certainly to aid in the production of a more attractive and more striking presentment of his subject. The object of The Ten Theophanies is fully set forth in the remainder of the title. As according with the nine Avatars in the Brahmin theology, of which Vischnu was the ninth and most eloquent, we have here a similar presentation of Christ as he appears in the predictions and resemblances of the Old Testament. In noticing the coincidences apparent in the Biblical narrative in this direction, we cannot but be struck with their meaning, as was Dr. Baker; a meaning which he has set forth, however, in diction so varied and poetic, that the title "A Prose Poem, " applied to the work, is hardly an exaggeration.

THE TEN THEOPHANIES.

I. CHRIST, KING AND PRIEST FOR THE WORLD OUTSIDE THE CHURCH.

(B. C. 1913—GEN. xiv. 18-20).

ELECTRICITY has existed in our atmosphere from the beginning. Not until to-day has it been converged into man-made suns, which abolish night. Jesus the Messiah pervades all Scripture, even as the electric influence permeates the air; let us see if He is not (may we say it?) so brought into convergence in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, that we may behold therein and therefrom a Light illumining the world such as we had not before imagined.

It is in the year 1913 before Christ. Eight years before, Abram had been led by God out of Haran.

The promise has been made to him of a home for his descendants in the land in which he now sojourns, and that his posterity is to be more in number than the dust. His nephew, Lot, has foolishly settled himself in one of the cities of the plains. A band of Asian sheiks have attacked those cities, and have departed rejoicing in their plentiful plunder and prisoners. Summoning his allies, and arming his servants, Abram has pursued after the robbers, has slain them and brought back their prey.

When, forty years after, Abraham by divine command places Isaac upon the altar, the precise mountain-top of this strikingly symbolical act of sacrifice is so carefully assigned that it cannot but be Calvary.

A like thing is ordered now. An event is about to befall, and the locality thereof is carefully given. To the Patriarch, returning from victorious war, there appears that mysterious personage whose very name has stood since then as a proverb of all perplexity.

"And Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought forth bread and wine: and he was the Priest of the most high God. And he blessed him and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth. And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all."

We see, from the narrative going before, that no less than twelve armed chieftains have been engaged with each other in war to the death. Suddenly there comes, and as into the center of the storm of strife, a king apart from them all, greater than all, who is distinctively Prince of Salem, —that is, of Peace. The region in which the war began is one which has sunk into such wickedness, that the hurricanes of fire are already gathering about it. So polluted is the very soil that, after being swept by the besom of wrath, it is to be buried deep down and forever under a sea of salt. The king, who so strangely shows himself, is one whose name means "the King my Righteousness,"

reminding us of that Christ whose name is " The Lord our Righteousness."

Of the twelve, there is one who is in every sense the superior of them all. It is Abram. Soon after this war, God is to enter into a special covenant with Abram, sealed by awful sacrifices, and by which he is separated and set off by himself more than ever from.

the world. Leading him out under the midnight sky, the promise of a peculiar posterity is to be sealed to him by the Almighty, who declares that the stars themselves are not more in number than that posterity shall come to be. Afterward God is to visit Abram at his tent in the appearance of a man, who eats, converses with him, and to whom Abram is to make supplication for Lot. By these acts, and circumcisions added thereto, this Patriarch and his descendants are to be set apart from all other nations. To them is to be made the only Revelation of God to man. The Scriptures of the Old and of the New Testaments are to be entrusted to them.

By and through them is to come that Messiah, who is to be the Saviour of the world; and the one temple of God on earth, the one divinely appointed priesthood and sacrifice, are to be and remain among them exclusively, as a system of symbols of this Messiah.

Here is, then, a critical moment. The torrent of human life is to flow steadily on, broadening and deepening, into the heathen nations of the world, to whom no special revelation is to be given from God. At this exact point, however, in Abram a new people is to be begun. In him and his descendants a stream of life, banked in to itself, is to flow, widening and deepening always, but always separate and distinct from the heathen peoples to the end of time. At this critical juncture it is, that this Priest-King appears. It is to Abram alone that He shows himself.

In four of the nine revelations of Himself to Abraham and his posterity, food is introduced. Now this august Person. brings in his hand no flesh of calf and kid, as afterward; it is bread and wine. He who brings it is a priest, yet here is no blazing altar, no bleeding victim. To-day Christ, our High-Priest, brings to us at each communion that which signifies in the simplest possible way his own flesh and blood, —that is, Himself, our atoning sacrifice. So was it, that day, with the father of the faithful. In him, and in his posterity, are to be seen two thousand years of types and shadows. At the hands of his Lord, Abram now eats and drinks of that which is to be signified by weary centuries of symbolism. In all lands and languages, in fact, the soul sets forth its intuition of sin and Savior by sacrifice. This is the essential meaning of it all, in its primeval as in its final simplicity. And here is Christ himself, King and Priest, the one atoning Savior of a sinful world.

As will be more fully seen in the notes at the end, in closest connection of meaning with this is (I.) The remarkable name which is here given to God.

Throughout all Scripture His name is so varied as to express in some way a relation to His covenant with Abraham and his descendants. How continually is He spoken of as the " God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!"

There is one other title, "the Most High God," which takes its remarkable significance, as distinguished from all Jewish usage, by the fact that it is upon the lips distinctively of those not Jewish.

(1) It is used by devils. "What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the Most High God?" is the cry to Jesus of the man torn among the tombs by an unclean spirit. "These men," the possessed damsel of Philippi cries after Paul and Silas, "are the servants of the Most High God."

(2) It is the name applied to the Almighty when his dealing with the wide world apart from Judea is referred to, as when Moses says, "The Most High divided to the nations their inheritance when He separated the sons of Adam."

(3) It is used when a worship outside of and wider than that of the Jews is spoken of, as when Stephen said, "The Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands."

(4) When God, apart from Church or nation as the God of nature, is meant: "The Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered his voice."

(5) This is almost the only name given to the Creator by heathen kings, as of Babylon: "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High," is the boast ascribed to one of these by the prophet. "Ye servants of the Most High God, come hither!" is the call of Nebuchadnezzar to the Hebrews in the fiery furnace. It is so when Daniel interprets the king's dream. In his proclamation thereafter, the king says: "Nebuchadnezzar the king unto all people, nations and languages, that dwell in all the earth; I thought it good to show the signs and wonders that the High God hath wrought toward me,"—that is, the God high above all gods; and the king goes on to say, that his own downfall was "to the intent that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men." To the end, this is the distinctive name given to God: "This is the decree of the Most High." "Till then, know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men," is the language of Daniel, accepting this as the title, wholly distinct from that of Jewish usage, by which the Supreme Deity of the heathen is signified. "Until then, know that the Most High ruleth,"—it is repeated, as the end of his downfall, " I, Nebuchadnezzar, blessed the Most High, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion."

(6) As Daniel used this title when speaking to the king of the Supreme Being, who had made no revelation of Himself to the heathen, so does he cling to it when he speaks of the coming kingdom of Christ. It is "the saints of the Most High," who "shall take the kingdom." "Judgment was given to the saints of the Most High." The Anti-Christ "shall speak great words against the Most High," "shall wear out the saints of the Most High." In the glorious ending of all, "The kingdom shall be given under the whole heaven to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him."

Here, then, is a royal title, of which two things are true: first, it is very rarely used in connection with Jewish worship; second, it is invariably used by the heathen, and by those who speak to the heathen, as the name peculiar to the unrevealed Maker and Sovereign of all. Victoria is Queen in England, and not Empress; over the two hundred and fifty millions of India she is known always as Empress, never as Queen. Described as "the Priest of the Most High God," He blesses Abram, saying: "Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be the Most High God which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand." This un-Jewish, un-ecclesiastical title is reaffirmed when this God is declared to be not the God of this nation or that: He is "possessor of heaven and earth," the entire world being swept by the title beneath His sway.

The impression made upon Abram is evident, for immediately thereafter he swears to the king of Sodom: "I have lifted up mine hand unto the Lord (Jehovah), the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth," thus coupling the Abrahamic name of God (i.e. "the Lord ") and identifying it with the Sovereign of the whole world.

Like the great crown diamond in the diadem of the Autocrat of all the Russias, and which was worn, ages ago, by untamed savages among the wild fastnesses of the Ural Mountains, so is this significant title of Most High a barbaric gem, as it were, in the crown of Him who is not only King of Zion, but Autocrat and Emperor of all lands, of all ages.

Thus, and from the hour of the separation of the people of God (Jew and Christian) from the rest of the race, Jesus Christ is pleased to manifest himself to Abram as He who is King and Priest to the world outside his own church.

(II.) Observe the many ways in which Scripture, incidentally or directly, confirms this: (1) By the twofold superiority of this Priest-King to Abram. As the Apostle afterward argued, that superiority is set at rest when the Patriarch is blessed of Him, for it is the greater who blesses the less; also when Abram, standing for the Levitical priesthood yet to be, pays tithes as to a Priest superior to that. It is tithes he pays to the great High-Priest; it is tribute he pays to the King of kings.

(2) That Melchizedek is none other than Christ, is plain from the express declaration of Scripture. In one place it is written of the Father: "Unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." In another, "The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a Priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek." This is the first vivid flash of light, more than a thousand years after, upon the majestic Person who appeared to Abram. Accepting this declaration of the inspired psalmist, the equally inspired writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews connects the assertion of the sonship of Christ with his priesthood, as set forth by Melchizedek, identifies and makes them one. "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee." "Thou art a Priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek."

Having touched this long-slumbering chord, it is as if this later servant of God never wearied of its music.

Over and over, and over again, he iterates and reiterates the fact, and why? Because he is insisting upon the perishable nature of all lesser priesthoods than that of the eternal Son of God, who appeared as Priest and King to Abram before the Jewish church was set up, and who would endure, King and Priest forever, after it had passed away.

While the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews dips his pen in ink, he can almost hear the mailed tread of the Roman host gathering, under Vespasian and Titus, about the walls of doomed Jerusalem. In a little while the temple, the city, the nation, will have passed away in blood and smoke, in flame and ashes; the people of God, blown by his wrathful breath over the whole earth—the dust of a dead Dispensation. What matters that to him, since all these things are, at best, but the poor symbols of Him who ever liveth to make intercession for us? The fabled river sparkled in the sunshine—broad, pure, deep, strong; plunging beneath the surface, it flows underground, but giving life to all that grows above it; far away it reappears again to the sunshine—strong, deep, pure, broad as ever. The Priest-King, bearing bread and wine to Abram, may have disappeared beneath the outward surface and show of things for so long. But all along, and out of sight, is He cause of all verdure and life. Reappearing in the crucified Christ, He endures to eternity to come as from eternity past—yesterday, to-day, forever the same! There are very many Scriptures to the same effect.

We see Him as He confronts Abram, before God's covenant is ratified with the Patriarch by solemn sacrifice, and at the birth of Isaac by the seal of circumcision.

He towers superior to Abram, blessing the Patriarch, giving him the bread and wine of his body to be broken, his blood to be shed—for whom?" He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." "The man whose name," says the prophet, "is The Branch ....

shall grow up out of his place .... and He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and He shall be a Priest upon his throne; and they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord."

We cannot conceive of this Joseph coming up out of the pit and the dungeon of death for Jew alone, or for Christian. "He is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall"; who, outside of temple and church, doth bud and blossom, and fill the face of the world with all it has had of fruit in every land. But the many Scriptures to the same effect come out as ...

Table of contents

• INTRODUCTION.
• A PAUSE UPON THE THRESHOLD.
• THE TEN THEOPHANIES.
• II. CHRIST THE PERSONAL FRIEND.
• III. CHRIST COMPELLED BY PRAYER.
• IV. CHRIST UPON SINAI.
• V. CHRIST AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.
• VI. CHRIST THE LIBERATOR.
• VII. CHRIST THE MASTER OF BRUTE FORCE.
• VIII. CHRIST THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD.
• IX. CHRIST AND THE WORLD-POWER.
• X. CHRIST THE REVEALER.
• A GLANCE BEHIND AT CLOSING.
• NOTES.