the Week of Proper 25 / Ordinary 30
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Bible Dictionaries
Morning
Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary
or There would have required no notice of this word in a work of this kind, had the mere sense of the meaning of the word morning been all that was intended; but the Scriptures of God have so often made use of the term in a figurative way, and yet more than that, have made so many beautiful allusions to Jesus under the metaphor of the morning, that I could not allow myself to pass it by without offering upon it a short observations It would be too extensive to notice all the places in both the sacred volumes where Christ is spoken of as the light of the morning, and the day-spring from on high, and the morning star, and the like; I shall only beg to select one passage, among the many, in proof of the similitude, and that from among the last words of David, (2 Samuel 23:4.) where, speaking of Christ, he saith, "And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun ariseth, even a morning without clouds." There never surely was a more beautiful, a more just, more enlivening representation or figure of the Lord Jesus than what those words have given. In himself Jesus is all this, and infinitely more. One with the Father and the Holy Ghost, he is the first cause of life, light, and glory; incomprehensibly so, the fountain, source, and origin of all that constitutes these infinite and eternal perfections. And in his mediatorial character and office, he is essentially so, the light and life of his people. So that when, in the eternal council of peace, he arose, to enlighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of his people Israel, he arose, as this Scripture represents him, as "the tight of the morning, when the sun ariseth, even a morning without clouds." For in himself he is a sun without a spot, a light in which there is no shade, a perfection of glory and beauty without alloy. A morning without clouds is a strong figure to denote Christ's person, and not more strong than just; for the glories of the Lord Jesus Christ are complete glories; nothing enters into them of an opposite quality. In the excellencies of creatures there are certain properties which enter, into their composition, and which prove their imperfection; indeed their very nature implies as much. The portrait, however beautiful, must have a shade. But not so with the Lord Jesus. He is a morning without a cloud. One of the old Puritan writers of the sixteenth century, calls him, a sea of sweetness, without one drop of gall."
And as Jesus is all this and infinitely more in himself, so is he in all that he is to his people. His love, his grace, his salvation, all are as "a morning without a cloud." There is nothing of mixture or imperfection in what he is to them, in what he hath done for them, and what he will be to them, and with them in glory to all eternity, His covenant is ordered in all things and sure; his salvation is an everlasting salvation. So that from the first dawn of grace in their hearts until that grace is consummated in glory, the Lord Jesus is a sun that no more goeth down, a morning without a cloud; for he not only giveth light, but is himself their light, and their God, their glory. Surely no figure comes up to our Lord Jesus with an exactness more full and complete than the beautiful one the Holy Ghost hath given by his servant David, "he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, eveen a morning without clouds!"
Think of Jesus under this sweet figure, I beseech you, reader; yea, never lose sight of him if possible. Jesus is a morning indeed without a cloud.
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Hawker, Robert D.D. Entry for 'Morning'. Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance and Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/pmd/m/morning.html. London. 1828.
