1.THE beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; 2. As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. 3. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 4. John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. 5. And there went out unto him all the land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. 6. And John was clothed with camels' hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey; 7. And preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. 8. I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.
We may observe here,
I. What the New Testament is—the divine testament, to which we adhere above all that is human; the new testament, which we advance above that which was old. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God, v. 1. 1. It is gospel; it is God's word, and is faithful and true; see Rev. 19. 9.—21. 5.—22. 6. It is a good word, and well worthy of all acceptation; it brings us glad tidings. 2. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the anointed Saviour, the Messiah promised and expected. The foregoing gospel began with the generation of Jesus Christ—that was but preliminary, this comes immediately to the business—the gospel of Christ. It is called his, not only because he is the Author of it, and it comes from him, but because he is the Subject of it, and it treats wholly concerning him. 3. This Jesus is the Son of God. That truth is the foundation on which the gospel is built, and which it is written to demonstrate; for if Jesus be not the Son of God, our faith is vain.
II. What the reference of the New Testament is to the Old, and its coherence with it. The gospel of Jesus Christ begins, and so we shall find it goes on, just as it is written in the prophets, (v. 2. ) for it saith no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said should come; (Acts 26. 22.) which was most proper and powerful for the conviction of the Jews, who believed the Old-Testament prophets to be sent of God, and ought to have evidenced that they did so, by welcoming the accomplishment of their prophecies in its season; but it is of use to us all for the confirmation of our faith both in the Old Testament and in the New, for the exact harmony that there is between both, shews that they both have the same divine original.
Quotations are here borrowed from two prophecies—that of Isaiah, which was the longest, and that of Malachi, which was the latest, (and there were above three hundred years between them,) both of whom spake to the same purport concerning the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, in the ministry of John.
1. Malachi, in whom we had the Old-Testament farewell, spake very plainly (ch. 3. 1.) concerning John Baptist, who was to give the New-Testament welcome. Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, v. 2. Christ himself had taken notice of this, and applied it to John, (Matth. 11. 10.) who was God's messenger, sent to prepare Christ's way.
2. Isaiah, the most evangelical of all the prophets, begins the evangelical part of his prophecy with this, which points to the beginning of the gospel of Christ; (Isa. 40. 3.) The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness; v. 3. Matthew had taken notice of this, and applied it to John, ch. 3. 3. But from these two, put together here, we may observe, (1.) That Christ, in his gospel, comes among us, bringing with him a treasure of grace, and a sceptre of government. (2.) Such is the corruption of the world, that it is something to do to make room for him, and to remove that which gives not only obstruction, but opposition, to his progress. (3.) When God sent his Son into the world, he took care, and when he sends him into the heart, he takes care, effectual care, to prepare his way before him; for the designs of his grace shall not be frustrated; nor may any expect the comforts of that grace, but such as, by conviction of sin and humiliation for it, are prepared for those comforts, and disposed to receive them. (4.) When the paths that were crooked are made straight, (the mistakes of the judgment rectified, and the crooked ways of the affections,) then way is made for Christ's comforts. (5.) It is in a wilderness, for such this world is, that Christ's way is prepared, and their's that follow him, like that which Israel passed through to Canaan. (6.) The messengers of conviction and terror, that come to prepare Christ's way, are God's messengers, whom he sends and will own, and must be received as such. (7.) They that are sent to prepare the way of the Lord, in such a vast howling wilderness as this is, have need to cry aloud, and not spare, and to lift up their voice like a trumpet.
III. What the beginning of the New Testament was. The gospel began in John Baptist; for the law and the prophets were, until John, the only divine revelation, but then the kingdom of God began to be preached, Luke 16. 16. Peter begins from the baptism of John, Acts 1. 22. The gospel did not begin so soon as the birth of Christ, for he took time to increase in wisdom and stature, not so late as his entering upon his public ministry, but half a year before, when John began to preach the same doctrine that Christ afterward preached. His baptism was the dawning of the gospel day; for,
1. In John's way of living there was the beginning of a gospel spirit; for it bespoke great self-denial, mortification of the flesh, a holy contempt of the world, and nonconformity to it, which may truly be called the beginning of the gospel of Christ in any soul, v. 6. He was clothed with camels' hair, not with soft raiment; was girt, not with a golden, but with a leathern, girdle; and, in contempt of dainties and delicate things, his meat was locusts and wild honey. Note, The more we sit loose to the body, and live above the world, the better we are prepared for Jesus Christ.
2. In John's preaching and baptizing there was the beginning of the gospel doctrines and ordinances, and the first fruits of them. (1.) He preached the remission of sins, which is the great gospel privlege; shewed people their need of it, that they were undone without it, and that it might be obtained. (2.) He preached repentance, in order to it; he told people that there must be a renovation of their hearts, and a reformation of their lives, that they must forsake their sins and turn to God, and upon those terms, and no other, their sins should be forgiven. Repentance for the remission of sins, was what the apostles were commissioned to preach to all nations, Luke 24. 47. (3.) He preached Christ, and directed his hearers to expect him speedily to appear, and to expect great things from him. The preaching of Christ is pure gospel, and that was John Baptist's preaching, v. 7, 8. Like a true gospel minister, he
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