The tragedy of Calvary: or the minute details of Christ's life from Palm Sunday morning till the resurrection and ascension taken from prophecy, history, revelations and ancient writings by Meagher, Jas. L. (James Luke), 1848-1920
THE OLD TESTAMENT ENDS; THE NEW BEGINS.
The Old Testament ended; the New Testament had begun. (Jer. xxxi. 31-34) The Old was begun and sealed by the blood of the victims Moses and Aaron offered, the New was signed with the blood of the Victim they all foretold. The Jewish nation rejected him. But the other nations received him and his teachings through the Apostles. Sleep now, thou Conqueror of death and hell. Thy victory is complete. Fulfil now the words foretelling thy death: "In.peace and in the self-same I will sleep, and I will rest." (Psalm iv. 9.)
Forever and forever, as long as our race shall run, man with his sin-laden soul, in the joys and sorrows of life, with faith, hope, and love, will turn to that bloody form of the Son of the Father and of the Virgin, offered as a Victim of the world's sins, and say in his innermost heart: " He died for me. He died that I might live with him in heaven.'* Lover of all mankind, filled with zeal for saving others, burning with the fire of the Holy Spirit, hungering for the souls of the members of the race he assumed up to the Divinity, he died the most terrific, the most atrocious, the most painful death a human being ever went through, that during all future ages, the story of his death might fill those who hear it with sympathy, wonder and love of him, and hatred for sin and demons, the cause of his death.
How few understand the wonders of the atonement ? There he hung that day, between heaven and earth, as a standard and a sign to the nations, as the prophet said. " In that day the root of Jesse who standeth for an ensign of the people, him the Gentiles shall beseech, and his sepulchre shall be glorious." (Isaias xi, 10.) " Thus saith the Lord: " Behold, I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and will set up my standard to the people. And they shall bring their sons in their arms, and carry their daughters upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nurses, and they shall worship thee with their faces towards the earth, and they shall lick up the dust of thy feet." (Isaias xlix, 22.)
The crime of the Deicide nation was finished. Without knowing it they had fulfilled the work of the redemption of the human race. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." The Romans will come later under Titus, capture their city, put them to the sword, and after they have built the Coliseum in Rome shall sell them as slaves into all the nations. From that time they will wander over the earth, like Cain, their prototype, with a mark on them, without a government, a place they can call their own, to show all nations that the Old Testament was true. Once the chosen people, they are so no more. The prophet foretold their terrible crime, their ruin and their future history.
DAVID'S PROPHECY. WRITTEN 1,000 YEARS BEFORE CHRIST.
JUDGE, O Lord, them that wrong me, overthrow them that fight against me. Take hold of arms and shield and rise up to help me. Bring out the sword arid shut up the war against them that persecute me, say to my soul, I am thy salvation. Let them be confounded and ashamed that seek after my soul. Let them be turned back and confounded that devise evil against me. Let them become as dust before the wind, and let the Angel of the Lord straighten them. For without cause they have hidden their net for me unto destruction, without cause they have upbraided my soul. . . . Unjust witnesses rising up have asked me things I knew not. They repaid me evil for good to the depriving me of my soul. But as for me, when they were troublesome to me, I was clothed with haircloth. I humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer shall be turned into my bosom. As a neighbor and as an own brother, so did I please; as one mourning and sorrowful so was I humbled. But they rejoiced against me, and came together; scourges were gathered together upon me, and I knew not. They were separated and repented not, they tempted me, they scoffed at me with scorn, they gnashed upon me with their teeth. Lord, wilt them look upon me ? rescue thou my soul from their malice, my only one from the lions. I will give thanks to thee in a great church. I will praise thee in a strong people. Let not them that are my enemies wrongfully rejoice over me, who have hated me without cause and winked with the eyes" etc. (Psalm xxxiv.)
