Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3394
“When He was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, ‘Who is this?’” Matthew 21:10.
THIS was not the first time that question had been asked, or asked concerning the same Person. “Who is this?” is a common question in reference to our Lord. “Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?” “Who is this king of glory?” and so on. Doubtless, the angels who are represented as standing on the Mercy Seat gazing down upon its golden brightness, desired to look into this very question in the olden times, and often said to one another, “Who is this?” We hear the Prophet speak of One who is anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows, and is therefore Man, but He is called by the same Prophet equal with God, Fellow of the Eternal! How can this be? “Who is this?” The subject of the Incarnation of a pure Spirit such as God is, in human flesh, must have been staggering even to the intellect of seraphs—and again and again they must have said, one to another, “Who is this?”
I can conceive that on that memorable night when the first Christmas carol made glad both Heaven and earth, the angels came to Bethlehem’s manger and looked upon the new-born Child, and said, “Who is this?” Knowing that He was the same Person to whom they had been obedient for many an age, the ever-glorious Son of God, they must have marvelled to find Him an Infant sleeping there where the horned oxen fed, or hanging on a woman’s breast! And they said to each other, “Who is this?” And I can conceive that they followed Him through those 12 years of His childhood, or during the years in which He remained in solitude and obscurity, unknown to the sons of men, and though they knew Him as the Son of Mary, and the reputed Son of Joseph, yet as watchful spirits they must have seen the pure beams of Deity in His Character! And so the marvelous and supernal excellence of His secret life must often have compelled them to ask, one of another, “Who is this?”
He is in the carpenter’s workshop, using the axe and the plane, and yet this is He who is to deliver Israel! How is this, and who is this? And I can imagine them following Him through the three years of His public ministry in the wilderness beholding Him tempted of the devil, though Lord of All and Prince and King! When they watched Him in His hunger, and cold, and nakedness, and saw Him in His sleepless nights upon the bare mountainside—when they beheld Him and strengthened Him in His agony and bloody sweat—when they gathered around the Cross, with all its terrors, could their eyes have known a tear, they would have wept it there and would have said, “Who is this?” When He was buried and after three days, rose again from the grave, there must have been amazement through all the angelic host! They came, some of them, and sat, the one at the head and the other at the foot, where the body of Jesus had lain, still wondering much at the great mystery. We can well gather that they asked such questions onward through His life, since when that life had come to a close, and the issues of it had begun to be developed, when our Lord ascended up on high and led captivity captive, clothed with Glory—when they came to meet Him, joined in the triumphal procession and approached the golden gates—when the songs went up, “Lift up your heads, O you gates, and be you lifted up, you everlasting doors, that the King of Glory may come in!” there was a wonder lingering among the watchers at the portals of Heaven, for they said, “Who is the King of Glory?” And again, a second time they said, “Who is the Lord of Hosts? Who is the King of Glory?” and they had to receive the two answers—they had to be told who He was that was mighty in battle and the Lord of Hosts who was the King of Glory! Do they not even now marvel, as they cast their crowns upon the glassy sea and mingle with the white-robed band—do they not now marvel that such as He should be born of a woman, that such as He should be tempted by the devil, that such as He should have known poverty, and nakedness, and death itself? Thosewounds, those scars still visible, must still be a theme for holy admiration and adoring questioning! And as they worship Him, recognizing in Him the Wisdom that was with God in the beginning, and without whom was not anything made that was made—as they adore Him as the Eternal Word, the Preserver as well as the Creator of all things—they must still, as they look to His Manhood taken into such union with His Godhead, think of Him with holy amazement, with joyous astonishment and ask, “Who is this?”
But we have not to do with the angels at this time! Rather our business is with the sons of men. And among them there ought to be more of the asking of this question, and there ought to be less. There ought to be more of it, the asking in holy wonder! There ought to be less of the asking of it in ignorance or in derision. The question, I take it, can be asked in both ways. Endeavoring to understand the mystery, he that knows it best may still say, “Who is this?” Caring not to know Him, but scornfully turning aside from this great mystery of godliness, there are tens of thousands who will continue to say, “Who is this? And why make this noise about Him, and all this stir and hubbub about the Man of Nazareth?” This question is still asked among the sons of men because in one sense it ought to be more common, but because in another sense it ought never to be raised, I speak upon it tonight. And first we shall take—