286
The Great Controversy 1888
anticipations the disciples looked forward to the establishment of
Messiah’s kingdom at Jerusalem, to rule over the whole earth.
They preached the message which Christ had committed to them,
though they themselves misapprehended its meaning. While their
announcement was founded on
Daniel 9:25
, they did not see, in the
next verse of the same chapter, that Messiah was to be cut off. From
their very birth their hearts had been set upon the anticipated glory
of an earthly empire, and this blinded their understanding alike to the
specifications of the prophecy and to the words of Christ.
They performed their duty in presenting to the Jewish nation the
invitation of mercy, and then, at the very time when they expected to
see their Lord ascend the throne of David, they beheld him seized as a
malefactor, scourged, derided, and condemned, and lifted up on the
cross of Calvary. What despair and anguish wrung the hearts of those
disciples during the days while their Lord was sleeping in the tomb!
[346]
Christ had come at the exact time and in the manner foretold by
prophecy. The testimony of Scripture had been fulfilled in every detail
of his ministry. He had preached the message of salvation, and “his
word was with power.” The hearts of his hearers had witnessed that
it was of Heaven. The Word and the Spirit of God attested the divine
commission of his Son.
The disciples still clung with undying affection to their beloved
Master. And yet their minds were shrouded in uncertainty and doubt.
In their anguish they did not then recall the words of Christ pointing
forward to his suffering and death. If Jesus of Nazareth had been
the true Messiah, would they have been thus plunged in grief and
disappointment? This was the question that tortured their souls, while
the Saviour lay in his sepulcher during the hopeless hours of that
Sabbath which intervened between his death and his resurrection.
Though the night of sorrow gathered dark about these followers of
Jesus, yet were they not forsaken. Saith the prophet: “When I sit in
darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me.... He will bring me forth
to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness.” “Yea, the darkness
hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day; the darkness and
the light are both alike to thee.” God hath spoken: “Unto the upright
there ariseth light in the darkness.” “I will bring the blind by a way
that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known.
I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight.