of the most striking features of Old Testament prediction is its
bearing upon the closing scenes of Christ's history. In its types as
well as in its prophecies His death was foreshadowed, and the
humiliating and ignominious treatment to which He was subjected minutely
described. The predictions involved events that appeared contradictory
and paradoxical until their fulfilment furnished the key. He Himself
told the disciples again and again that He should be crucified. This
form of execution was a Roman punishment reserved for slaves and the
vilest criminals; and the fact that Jesus was subjected to it depended
on a combination of events which no mere human sagacity could have
foreseen. It required that, though he should be apprehended, accused,
tried, and found guilty by Jews, His death-sentence should be inflicted
by Gentiles; that the Roman governor of Judaea should, against his
better judgment, surrender to the clamorous cry of a mob who demanded
that the prisoner should be crucified. It required that the betrayal and
condemnation of Jesus should take place during the Passover week, when
it was unlawful for the Jews to put any man to death. The excuse of the
Jewish rulers, that they could not inflict death, did not mean that this
power had been withdrawn from them, but that it was against their law to
exercise it then. Had the season been different, had the Jews themselves
carried out the sentence of death, it would have been accomplished not
by crucifixion, but by stoning. Such an execution would not have
fulfilled prophecy or have been associated with the ignominy that marked
the Roman death-penalty. Thus the Scripture was fulfilled in Him,
"Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree."[097] There is but one
explanation that meets these facts, which is that they were directed by
the counsel and foreknowledge of God, and that holy men of God spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

The death of Jesus by crucifixion fulfilled in a wonderful manner the
types and figures of the Old Testament. He applied the type of the
brazen serpent to His death on the cross on which He was to be lifted
up, and from which He was to exercise His healing power on those whom
sin had bitten. The surrender of Isaac by Abraham, when he that had
received the promises offered up his only begotten son, prefigured the
unspeakable gift by the Father, who spared not His own Son, and the
self-surrender of the Son, who gave Himself for us. As Is