eference to the
historical Christ, rests on their misapprehension of Christ's Regal
office. The Regal office of Christ is by no means a poetical image, but
the most _real_ among all kingly offices; yea. His kingdom is that from
which all others derive their existence and reality. It rests,
_further_, on their ignorance as regards the final history of the
Messianic kingdom. Of the whole history of Christ, they know a single
fragment only, viz.. His first appearance in His humiliation; and even
this they know, and can know, only very imperfectly. His invisible
dominion existing even now, they do not recognise, because it is beheld
with the eye of faith only; and His future visible manifestation of it
they do not believe, because they have not experienced in their own
hearts the invisible power of Christ, which is a pledge and earnest of
this visible success. It rests, _finally_, on their ignorance of the
prophetic vision, which necessarily requires that the kingdom of
God under the Old Testament should serve as a substratum for the
description of the kingdom of Christ. It can be demonstrated, from the
intimations contained in this passage, in which the Messiah appears
in His glory, how little it is contradictory to others, in which
He is represented in His lowest humiliation. Through humiliation to
glory,--this is the proposition which lies at the foundation of
the announcements of the prophet concerning the destinies of the
Covenant-people, and which he distinctly expresses in regard to
Bethlehem. That this proposition is applicable to the Head not less
than to the members,--to Him who was born, not less than to the place
where He was born, appears from the circumstance that He was to be born
at the time of the deepest degradation of the Davidic dynasty, iv. 8,
and not at Jerusalem, where His Royal ancestors resided, but at
Bethlehem.

2. As regards the last words of this verse, the same twofold false
interpretation which we noticed among Jewish interpreters, is found
among Christian expositors also. One of these, which, besides in other
Jewish interpreters, occurs in _Jarchi_ ("_and His goings out_, etc.;
just as in Ps. lxxii. 17, it was said that His name [Pg 502] should
continue as long as the sun;--thus _Jonathan_ also translated it"),
changes the eternal origin of Christ into an eternal predestination.
This view was held by _Calvin_: "These words," he says, "signify that
the rising of the Prince who was to rule the