emphasis is, that the great Prophet here promised, who is Christ, should be one of their brethren, as Moses was.  His personal advent was for many ages delayed; but in the meantime his office was foreshadowed by the prophetical order in Israel, consisting of men sent by God to address their brethren.  Thus the old dispensation and the new are linked together by the great fundamental principle—­that God should address man through man—­which runs through both.  The whole series of Old Testament prophecies, moreover, point to Christ as their end and fulfilment; “for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”  Rev. 19:10.

The kingly office of the Old Testament connects itself with that of Christ in a special way.  Not only did the headship given to David and his successors over the covenant people of God adumbrate the higher headship of Christ, but David had from God the promise:  “Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee:  thy throne shall be established for ever.” 2 Sam. 7:16.  This promise is fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, “the seed of David according to the flesh,” according to the express declaration of the New Testament:  “The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”  Luke 1:32, 33.

The priestly office, with the blood of the sacrifices connected with it, prefigured Christ, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”  By the stream of sacrificial blood that flowed for so many ages was set forth that great fundamental truth of redemption, that “without shedding of blood is no remission.”  Heb. 9:22.  The sacrifices of the Mosaic law were continually repeated, because “it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.”  Heb. 10:4.  But when Christ had offered his own blood on Calvary for the sins of the world, the typical sacrifices of the law ceased for ever, having been fulfilled in the great Antitype, “in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.”  Ephes. 1:7.

5.  Since the Old Testament and the New are thus inseparably connected as parts of one grand system of revelation, of which the end is Christ, it follows that the later revelations of the New Testament are the true interpreters of the earlier, which are contained in the Old.  This is only saying that the Holy Ghost is the true and proper expositor of his own communications to man.  From the interpretations of Christ and his apostles, fairly ascertained, there is no appeal.  And they are fairly ascertained when we have learned in what sense they must have been understood by their hearers.  All expositions of the Old Testament that set aside, either openly or in a covert way, the supreme authority of Christ and his apostles, are false, and only lead men away from the truth as it is in Jesus.

CHAPTER IX.