Dear Sisters,
What a wonderful time of the year it is to conclude our summer activities and spend more time contemplating our many blessings. I am grateful to have the scriptures in my life--particularly the Old Testament because of the many great prophets who so diligently wrote and preserved them for thousands of years so the Word of God would continue to teach us in these Latter Days. And with these writings we can find so many types and predictions of Jesus Christ.
I loved Chapter Five of Jesus the Christ "Earthly Advent of the Christ Predicted".
Brother Talmage reminds us that the Old Testament was available 'long before the time of Christ's birth...[with] the utterances of divinely commissioned prophets,...records of appointed historians, and the songs of inspired poets"
We first see in the Creation Story how "through the seed of the woman should come the power to bruise the adversary's head."
He reminds us of Jacob's blessing to Judah in Gen. 49:10--The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come(a name regarded by many biblical scholars as a prophecy of the coming of Messiah and further discussed in his Chapter Notes #2); and unto him shall the gathering of the people be."
Moses instigated laws of sacrifice to remind the people that "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken." (Deut. 18:15-19) Brother Talmage says: "The paschal lamb...was a particular type of the Lamb of God who in due time would be slain for the sins of he world." He gives many foot-notes of scriptures from the New Testament and Book of Mormon that give further enlightenment of Christ as the Lamb of God.
He then goes on to describe scriptures from Job, songs from David's Psalms, passages from Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Micah, Zechariah and Isaiah that prophecy of Christ.
It is interesting to read his Note #1 in this chapter on 'The Antiquity of Sacrifice as a Prototype of Christ's Atoning Death' as he discusses the various pros and cons of Messiah predictions in the Old Testament.
The sixth Ward presented a fireside on Monday night featuring the great-granddaughter of Brother Talmage who gave us better insight into his life, diligence and devotion to the Savior--insights that will be discussed in later posts. There is one correction I would like to make from my first post: that Talmage lived in the temple while he wrote his book, Jesus the Christ. His great-granddaughter said that this is erroneous--he went home late every night!
I hope you are enjoying reading Jesus the Christ or The Book of Mormon with our stake. I think it creates a wonderful spirit among us, and I appreciate your many wonderful thoughts and comments.