5.  But it is preeminently in Christ that the prophecies of the Old Testament have their fulfilment.  As the rays of the sun in a burning-glass all converge to one bright focus, so all the different lines of prophecy in the Old Testament centre in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  Separated from him they have neither unity nor harmony; but are, like the primitive chaos, “without form and void.”  But in him predictions, apparently contradictory to each other, meet with divine unity and harmony.

He is a great Prophet, like Moses; the Mediator, therefore, of the new economy, as Moses was of the old, and revealing to the people the whole will of God.  As a Prophet, the Spirit of the Lord rests upon him, “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”  Isa. 11:2.  As a Prophet, he receives from God the tongue of the learned, that he should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.  Isa. 50:4.  As a Prophet, “the kings shall shut their mouths at him:  for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.”  Isaiah 52:15.

He is also a mighty King, to whom God has given the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession.  He breaks the nations with a rod of iron; he dashes them in pieces as a potter’s vessel, Psa. 2:8, 9; and yet “he shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.  A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench:  he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.”  Isa. 42:2, 3.  “All kings shall fall down before him:  all nations shall serve him,” Psa. 72:11; and yet “he is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:”  “he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.”  Isa. 53:3, 7.  Many other like contrasts could be added.

With the kingly he unites the priestly office.  Sitting as a king “upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever,” Isa. 9:7, he is yet “a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.”  Nor is his priestly office any thing of subordinate importance, for he is inducted into it by the solemn oath of Jehovah:  “The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.”  Psa. 110:4.  As a priest he offers up himself “an offering for sin:”  “he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”  Isa., ch. 53.  When we find a key that opens all the intricate wards of a lock,