2 Chronicles 4:22

REFLECTIONS

READER! let us not dismiss this chapter, however short and imperfect our researches can go, in the discovery of spiritual blessings veiled under temporal ministrations, without first looking at the several things here consecrated to the service of the temple, with an eye to better things to come, and in reference to Jesus, and his church, and ministry. Was not the golden altar a beautiful emblem of the divinity of the Lord Jesus? It is the altar, we are told, which sanctifieth the gift: and surely it was the Deity of Jesus which gave dignity and efficacy to his complete redemption. Surely the altar represented Jesus in his person, blood, and sacrifice, as the incense ascending from it, became a lively emblem of the efficacy of his all-prevailing intercession; neither can we be at a loss to understand to what purpose the tables in the temple ministered, when we now behold the table of the Lord, with the standing ordinance of his holy supper, constantly presented to our view, as a memorial of his death, to be observed forever in his church. And the molten sea, with all the washings both of priests and people, as sweetly set forth the ordinance of baptism in the church of Jesus, which forms an entrance into the pale of the covenant by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, shed on the Lord's people abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Hail! thou all-blessed, all-precious Emmanuel! thou art the one great ordinance of heaven! in thee and thy finished work of salvation we behold all the services, ordinances, sacrifices, and temple-worship of the old church dispensation centre. In thee, dearest Lord, they all had their accomplishment. They were the shadow of good things to come: and thou art the substance. To thee they all point. By thee their efficacy is forever done away. And in thee their services are rendered no longer necessary. Thou art the end of all for righteousness to everyone that believeth; and in thy complete redemption-work we behold our souls justified before God. Everlasting praises be unto thee; O Lord, for all thou hast wrought and accomplished by thy blood!