Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/218

 pronoun His in the expression His throne is used twice in ver. 1 3 in reference to the Messiah, and cannot well be regarded as relating to Jehovah. The royal dignity of the Messiah is specially referred to, inasmuch as the Messiah, as King, would have power to perform the work which He had to do. But the fact that the pronoun in the phrase His throne cannot refer to Jehovah, does not prove that Jehovah cannot be one of the two persons referred to at the close of the verse. Two, and only two, persons are referred to in the verse namely, the Lord and the Lord's Christ; and many eminent scholars as Vitringa, Reuss, Pusey, and Jerome have considered that these are the two Persons to whom reference is made in the clause, the counsel of peace shall be between them both.

" The prophecy indeed is closely connected with Ps. ex., where a counsel between the Lord and His Christ is plainly referred to, and where Messiah is predicted as King and Priest. This is the natural meaning, and the way in which the words were no doubt interpreted by the hearers of the prophet Zechariah."

" In Christ," to quote another writer, " all is perfect harmony. There is a counsel of peace between Him and the Father whose Temple He builds. The will of the Father and the Son is one. Both have one will of love toward us, the salvation of the world, bringing forth peace through our redemption. God the Father so loved the world that He gave His only -begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life; and God the Son is our peace \ who hath made both one, that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, and came and preached peace to them whicJi were afar off, and to them that were nigh" (Eph. ii. 14, 16, 17).

In all fulness, however, the blessed fruit of this " counsel of peace," and the " thoughts of salvation " between the Father and the Son, will only be realised by Israel and the nations of the earth during the period of Messiah's reign, and by the one Church of the living God through