Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/127

 Malkha Meshicha the theocratic " King Messiah " presented to us, and the fulfilment of the prophecy, " Behold, I will raise unto David a Righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth," gradually unfolded before us. In keeping with its primary design is its very style. The keynote throughout is " that it might be fulfilled." For this reason also is Christ presented to us in this Gospel, more than in any of the others, as the Prophet like unto Moses, the great lawgiver of the Old Covenant, and yet above Moses and the whole prophetic order, not only in the new unfolding and application of the law in the so-called " Sermon on the Mount," but in His four other great dis courses, to which the narrative portion supplied by Matthew forms the framework. For the same reason also the genealogy in this Gospel traces back Christ's earthly descent only as far as Abraham, for the aim of the Evangelist is to unfold the thesis laid down in the ist verse, which is in itself a summary and fulfilment of all the Messianic hope of the Old Testament: " The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

(2) But if " Behold thy King" (Zech. ix. 9) is the key note of the Gospel of Matthew, the inscription written by the Spirit of God on the Gospel of Mark is, " Behold My Servant." This, the shortest of the four Gospels, which, though written by the pen of John Mark, has most probably " come to us from the lips of Peter " and was apparently designed in the providence of God primarily for the practical, busy Roman world is a graphic and living sketch of that Blessed One Who spoke of Himself in the Spirit long before His advent " Lo I am come: in the scroll of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God, yea, Thy law is within My heart." It is a record, not so much of the words of Jesus as of His acts. It is composed of two sections only the ministry in Galilee and the death on Calvary.

" His ministry moves in widening circles first in the synagogue, then in the open field, to the interested groups