This Zacharias testified when he was filled with the Holy Ghost; for, speaking of the Messiah or the Saviour, he saith that God spoke of him by the mouth of all the prophets who have been since the world began; to which I will add that of Peter, ‘Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days’ (Luke 1:69, 70; Acts 3:24).
From these texts, it is evident that in every generation or age of the world, God did give his people a promise, and so ground for a believing remembrance, that he would one day send them a Saviour; for indeed the promise is not only a ground for remembrance but for a believing remembrance. What God saith is sufficient ground for faith because he is truth and cannot lie or repent. But that is not all; his heart was engaged, yea, all his heart, in the promise he spoke of sending us a Saviour.
From this observation, I shall inquire into these three things: FIRST, what it is to be a Saviour. SECOND, how it appears that God has promised his people a Saviour throughout the ages. THIRD, that this was ground for believing remembrance that a Saviour should one day come.
FIRST. What it is to be a Saviour.
First, the word ‘Saviour’ is easy to understand. It is all one with Deliverer, Redeemer, &c. ‘A Saviour, Jesus,’ both words are of the same signification and are doubled, perhaps to teach us that the person mentioned in the text is not called ‘Jesus’ only to distinguish him from other men—for names are given to distinguish—but also and especially to specify his office; his name is Saviour because it was to be his work, his office, his business in the world. His name shall be called Jesus, ‘for he shall save his people from their sins’ (Matt 1:21).
Second. This word ‘Saviour’ is so significant that it has a place in all Christ’s undertakings: for whatever he does in his mediation, he does as a Saviour. He interposes between God and man as a Saviour; he engages against sin, the devil, death, and hell as a Saviour and triumphs over them by himself as a Saviour.
Third. The word ‘Saviour,’ as I said, is all one with Redeemer, Deliverer, Reconciler, Peace-maker, or the like; for though there be variation in the terms, yet Saviour is the intendment of them all. By redeeming he becomes a Saviour, by delivering he becomes a Saviour, by reconciling he becomes a Saviour, and by making peace he becometh a Saviour. But I pass this now, intending to speak more to the same question afterward.
SECOND. It appears that God has promised his people a Saviour throughout history.
It appears evidently, for so soon as man had sinned, God came to him with a heart full of promise and continued to renew and renew until the time of the promised Messiah to be revealed was come.
[First.] He promised him under the name of ‘the seed of the women,’ after our first father had sinned—’I will also put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel’ (Gen 3:15).[1] This the apostle hath his eye upon when he saith, ‘When the fulness of the time has come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law’ (Gal 4:4,5).
Second. God renewed this promise to Abraham and told him Christ should be his seed, saying, ‘In thy seed shall all families of the earth be blessed’ (Gen 12:3). ‘Now,’ saith Paul, ‘to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ (Gal 3:16).
Third. He was promised in the time of Moses under the name of a ‘prophet’—’ I will raise them up,’ saith God to him, a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee’ (Deut 18:18). This Peter expounds on Christ, ‘For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; he shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you’ (Acts 3:22). Fourth. He promised him to David under the title of a ‘son,’ saying, ‘I will be his Father, and he shall be my Son’ (2 Sam 7:14). For this the apostle expounded of the Saviour, saying, ‘Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee’; and again, ‘I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son’ (Heb 1:5).
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