Scripture, Pointing to Christ – Charles Spurgeon

SOME time ago, when in Italy, at a town on the Italian side of the Alps, I saw one Sunday afternoon, in a quiet walk alone, a sight which struck me very much, and which remains fixed upon my memory. There was outside the town a mountain, all the way up the sides of which were different representations of the progress of our Lord, from the garden where Judas betrayed him to the place of his resurrection. The figures were as large as life, carved in either stone or wood, and painted to imitate nature. When I got to the very summit of the hill, there was a church. There was no one in it, and I pushed open the door and went in. All was still. It was a large building, and all around it were images of the prophets and the apostles. There stood Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and all the rest—one knew the usual portraits of them; and up in the dome, at the very top of the church, was a large and striking image of the Savior. Now, what struck me about the church was this—that the images of those prophets and apostles who stood there had their fingers all pointed upwards, so that when I went in I could not help looking up to the top to see what they were pointing at. All round the church there were the words, in Latin, “Moses and the prophets spoke concerning him:” and there stood Moses and the prophets carved in stone, and all pointing to him. Isaiah had a little scroll in his hand, on which was written, “The Lord has made to meet on him the iniquity of us all.” Jeremiah had a scroll in his hand, on which was written, “Behold, and see if there was ever sorrow like unto my sorrow, which was done unto me.” I think the church just represented the truth in that case. It is even so. All the prophets stand as a complete circle of distinct testifiers, and, with uplifted fingers, they all concur with John the Baptist when he said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world.” They all point to Christ. If you read the life of Christ, and then read what they said of him, you will be persuaded that this is he which was to come.