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for a door of hope; and she shall sing there as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt; and it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shall call me Ishi, (my husband). and I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness and in judgment, and in loving-kindness and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the Lord" (chap. ii. 14-16, 19, 20.)

The scene at the marriage at Cana in Galilee is a divine picture of what the prophet thus foretells. The very mention of " the third day" marks it as a period of resurrection-gladness. The question put to Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones will be answered then. With noise and shaking bone will have come to bone, and the sinews and flesh covered them, and the breath from the four winds come unto them. Israel's hope, which they have clung to through so many long and weary years, will at length have reached fruition; and men will realise in their case that "the gifts and calling of God are" indeed "without repentance."

Israel's Bridegroom, too, will be the risen Lord. In the type of it here, He takes as it were that place towards the close, providing the wine of the feast, which it was the bridegroom's part to do. Thus it is told forth what He will be when the day comes for accomplishing these shadows. Yet very sweetly, notwithstanding, is the higher blessing of His heavenly "disciples" kept in view. "Both Jesus was called and his disciples to the marriage." So inseparable from Him are they, that if one were called so must be the other. And so it will be when the day of Jerusalem's bridal comes. "When Christ shall appear, we shall appear with Him in glory." Then, when those hitherto empty waterpots being filled with the purifying water, they shall draw out of them with gladness the best wine kept till now.

What a striking figure of hollow formalism were those empty waterpots! And even such was the nation when the Lord first came among them. Like the mother of Jesus they asked Him for the wine then, but His

"hour was not yet come." He must shed His blood for that noway else could they have it. The "wine that cheereth God and man "" comes from the side of the Crucified One. This is the Samaritan's balm for our deadly wounds. This is the "strong drink for those "ready to perish," the cordial for those "of heavy hearts"-"that they may drink, and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no

more."

And when the set time to favour Zion shall have come, when "they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced," they "shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son, and be in bitterness for Him as one that is in bitterness for his first-born." Then the antitype of their day of atonement will have come, "a sabbath of rest," when "they shall afflict their souls," and through the offering made for them, "be clean from all their sins before the Lord." Then the waterpots shall be filled even to the brim, but the water of repentance shall be, by a mightier miracle than that of Cana, changed unto the wine of joy and gladness for ever. Those resurrection words of blessing shall be again spoken: "Peace be unto you," and He shall say again as He said once to Thomas: "Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless, but believing." And with Thomas they shall answer and say to Him, "Our Lord and our God."

But the higher blessing still shall be their's, who having not seen, have yet believed. We, too, shall be Nazarites no longer. We shall drink of this new wine also. In a higher sense still to us, that shall be fulfilled: "I will drink the wine new with you in my Father's kingdom."

In the 13th verse of this chapter, another feature of this time of blessing is presented. Cleansing the judgment is what is before us there. The Lord is as one whom zeal for His Father's house devours. His title

to cleanse is resurrection: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." "He spake of the temple of His body."

And very blessed it is to see, that just as Jesus is represented to us all through His blessed life of lowliness down here,-One who comes not in His own name, nor seeking His own glory, but His who sent Him,— so is He the selfsame Jesus, "yesterday, to-day and for ever," when in glory He takes the kingdom. When on earth the prayer He put into the mouth of His disciples was not for His own, but for the Father's glory: "Our Father, . . . Thy kingdom come," passing over His own throne as Son of man,-passing over the blessedness of the millennial day,-on to the time when in the new heaven and new earth," (for there only "righteousness shall "dwell," "His will shall be done on earth even as it is in heaven." In like manner when He takes His throne on earth, He reigns until "all things are subdued unto Him," and when that is accomplished, "He delivers up the kingdom "-none taking it from Him-" to God even the Father." And "then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him who put all things under Him, that God may "be all in all."

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Of course this touches not the truth of His absolute divinity. As God He gives up no place: as man He is subject. How wondrous the union of these two, in one adorable Person! "The image of the Invisible God,""the first-born of every creature." The blessed unperishable link between God and all that He has made. The eternal display of divine glory in its fulness before the eyes of all. God who loveth,-who is Love,-and who has brought us unto Himself that in the knowledge of Him our hearts might be filled with joy,-might overflow in worship. For that it is WORSHIP that is so to occupy us in heaven, is just the testimony of how full, even to overflowing, every heart shall be.

G.

245

No. XVI.

THE HEAVENLY CALLING.-IN WHAT IS

THE POWER OF IT?

EVERYTHING Connected with the Heavenly Calling evidently lies on the resurrection side of the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ: the centre of it is Himself, and Himself ascended to heaven. When He was risen from the dead, He tarried and showed Himself to His disciples during forty days-nearly six weeks, as we speak-Himself the centre of all the affections and thoughts and actions of those that were disciples-and they, not knowing what was about to take place, did not and could not in heart or mind precede Him to heaven. When they saw Himself, however, go up," and a cloud received him out of their sight" (Acts i. 9), they could and did follow Him-they recognised that He was in heaven. And did He not carry off their hearts and minds with Him? This is the first great point of power: Himself, the recognised spring and centre and end of all their blessing who loved Him, was gone away, be it to receive a kingdom and to come again, but still He was gone away, and gone into heaven. The needle turns to the north, and love turns to Himself wherever He is.

But, secondly, they had not then inward power; the promise of the Father was not come. Obedient to their Lord's words given after the resurrection (Acts i. 2), they had to wait for this. Ten days after His ascension He shed forth that power. Life they had had before; instruction and the opened understanding had been given to them, but now the power of God the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, was with them. They were filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" (ii. 4). Here was power, power indwelling. The Spirit had come down from heaven, proof of God's

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delight in Jesus: "This Jesus hath God raised up.. therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." Jesus their Lord and, through three-and-a-half years of eventful service, their proved and tried Saviour and Lover,-Jesus was Himself gone to heaven; and they had proof of it, and the world too had proof of His discriminating love, when He sent down the Holy Ghost to them that, being one with Him, they might be able to bear worthy witness of Him. But while He was in heaven and they on earth were vessels of the power of God in heaven, witnesses that Jesus had been made. Lord and Christ,-they knew not that He would not return to Jerusalem. Israel was called by them to repent of its sin and to receive the fulfilment of the promises that had been made to it. This, however, was changed when they rejected the Holy Ghost and martyred Stephen.

With his death came out to light a proof of his Lord's amazing grace, and that in a form which brought out, in principle, the outline of the truth of the heavenly calling. An earth-rejected Stephen-"being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God" (Acts vii. 55). And he declared what he saw: "the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God" (ver. 56). And then, invoking the Lord Jesus, and saying, Receive my spirit, and again (when kneeling), Lord, lay not this sin to their charge he fell asleep.

As the types of Leviticus, as the tabernacle and the temple, as Moses a mediator, and Aaron a high priestwere embodiments in tangible things addressed to sense, of truths presented in the Lord Jesus Christ, just so do I look upon this scene. It is what might serve as a vignette at the head of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and of Peter's first epistle. Who can read 1 John i. 1-3, and not see how John's previous intercourse with the Lord down here was the elementary experience which was meant to be developed in his after service. Just so,