September 1

"And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not near here: put off your shoes from of your feet, for the place whereon you stands is holy ground. Moreover he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God." Exodus 3:2-6.

This type — a type it doubtless is — is radiant with the glory of Christ. It shadows forth Christ in the mysterious constitution of His complex person, and in the great work for the accomplishment of which he became so constituted.

The first point demanding our attention is the Divine manifestation. That Jehovah was here revealed, the evidence is most conclusive. When Moses turned aside to see the great sight, "God called unto him out of the midst of the bush." It was no mere vision that he saw, no hallucination of the mind had come over him; he could not be deceived as to the Divine Being in whose immediate and solemn presence he then stood. How awe-struck must have been his mind! how solemn his impressions! how sacred his thoughts! But if further proof were needed, the declaration of God Himself sets the question of the Divine appearance at rest—"I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." No truth could be more clearly established.

But in which person of the sacred and adorable Three, it may be asked, did God thus appear? We have every scriptural reason to believe that it was JEHOVAH-JESUS; that it was a manifestation anticipative of His future appearance in the flesh, of the Godhead of Christ. Thus, then, the type sets forth the glory of the Divine person of our dear Lord. How solemn, and yet how delightful to the mind, and establishing to our faith, is the truth, that the same God who under the old dispensation, on so many occasions, in so many gracious and glorious ways, and in so many remarkable and undoubted instances, appeared to the ancient believers, is He who was born in Bethlehem, who lived a life of obedience to the law, and died an atoning death upon the cross; the Savior, the Surety of His people! What reality does it give to the salvation of the saints! Beloved, remember at all times, the same Jehovah who spoke from the midst of the flaming bush, and said, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," speaks to you from the cross and in the Gospel, and says, "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Oh "glorious Gospel of the blessed God!"

The second point of consideration in this remarkable type, as setting forth the glory of Immanuel, is the symbol in which He appeared. It is full of instruction. And what symbol did our Lord select in which to embody His Deity? Did He choose some tall cedar of Lebanon, or some majestic oak of the forest? No; but a bush—the most mean and insignificant, the most lowly and unsightly of all trees—was to enshrine the Godhead of Him whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain. And what is the truth it conveys? Oh, most glorious and precious. It points to the incarnate glory of the Son of God—the lowliness and lowliness of His nature. Referring again to the type, it will instantly appear that the unveiled, unclouded, and unembodied glory of Jehovah would have appalled and overwhelmed with its ineffable brightness the awe-stricken and astonished man of God. He could not have looked upon God and lived. "There shall no man see me and live," says the Lord. It was therefore proper, yes, it was merciful that all the manifestations of God to His people in the old dispensation should be through the medium of objects on which the eye could look without pain, and on which the mind could repose with out fear. Veiled in a cloud, or embodied in a bush, God could approach the creature with condescending grace, and reveal His mind; the creature could approach God with humble confidence, and open his heart. How kind and condescending in Jehovah to subdue and soften the splendor of His majesty, thus attempting it to the weak vision of mortal and sinful man!

But this was typical of that more wondrous and stupendous stoop of God in the new dispensation. All the subdued and obscure manifestations of the Godhead in the former economy were but the forecasting shadows of the great mystery of godliness then approaching; and possessed no glory, by reason of the glory that excels. But mark the condescending grace, the deep abasement, the infinite lowliness of the Son of God. When He purposed to appear in an inferior nature, what form of manifestation did He assume? Did He embody His Godhead in some tall archangel? Did He enshrine it in some glowing seraph? No! "For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham." He lowered Himself to our mean and degraded nature—He selected our fallen, suffering, sorrowing, tempted humanity—He takes into union with Deity a creature, not of the highest rank and beauty, but a spirit dwelling in a temple of flesh; yes, not merely the inhabitant of the temple, but He unites Himself with the temple itself: for the "Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us;" and even this flesh not connected with its state of primeval glory, but associated with all the humbling, though sinless, infirmities of its fallen condition. Behold, too, the lowliness of Christ in the world's eye. In Him it sees no glory, and traces no beauty; His outward form of humiliation veils it from their view. He is to them but as a "root out of the dry ground, having no form nor loveliness."