The Gladdening and Lovely Time of Spring

Here David compares the rule or kingdom of the Messiah, who shall re-establish and restore righteousness and the fear of God, to the gladdening and lovely time of spring, wherein the world, after the dull and gloomy scene of a long winter, begins to open forth its beauties again and to cheer every kind of living creature by its new appearance. For while, during the winter, the sun is far removed from us, the earth is, as it were, shut out and confined by cheerless frost, ice, and snow. The trees wear a miserable aspect, being stripped of their foliage and verdure, and everything that grows out of the earth lies torpid. There is no trace of anything flowery or verdant anywhere to be seen, no fruits show themselves, and the whole world is, as it were, dead. However, as soon as the spring begins to appear, the sun now coming nearer to us opens the earth, which then smiles with a new and lovely aspect, and the whole world seems to arise from the dead. For all ever consider that the spring is the most delightful time of the year, as the poet sings,

Now every tree its leafy pride resumes,

And the year’s loveliest season smiles around.

There are many who have been of the opinion and have said that it was in this season of the year that the world was first created; that agrees with the Scriptures, also, which make the vernal month, that is our March or April, to be the first month of the year.

In like manner, the kingdom of grace peculiar to this Ruler brings to us the all-gladdening and plenteous time of spiritual delight, wherein this Messiah freely gives unto us righteousness and the fear of God, whereby we, as green, flourishing, and fragrant plants, grow up in him and bring forth fruit. For He is our Sun of righteousness, who now comes near unto us that He might shed upon us His light and life. As it is said in Malachi 4:2a, “But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings.” And that He might do all these things by signs it was His will to abolish death and to begin this His kingdom of a new and eternal righteousness by His resurrection in the time of spring, when all nature returns to life. Whereas, before, He was born into the world in the middle of winter, which was to signify that He undertook for our sakes the dark and dreadful burden of sin, misery, and death, to which the human race was subjected. He bore the tempestuous season of this winter for upwards of thirtythree years.

For, as in this prophetic description by the time of spring is signified the saving and life-giving time of the grace of God, which has dawned upon us through the Messiah, the Son of God, so, on the contrary, by the time of winter the opposite is signified: that is, the time of the wrath of God under sin into which the whole human race has been plunged by nature since the time of their first parents by their fall. God, under this order of the times and seasons has, as it were, shadowed and set forth similitudes, whereby to present unto us these different states of sin and grace that we might by the different changes of the seasons be continually reminded of these things until the last day (when there shall be another and a new heaven and earth, and another order of things); that we might thus be brought to think upon these great matters and learn to make a practical use of them each day of our lives. May God grant that our eyes and ears may be attentive to the admonitions which the seasons thus afford us.

According, therefore, to this spiritual representation of things contained in the changes of the seasons, Adam, the first of the human race, may rightly be said to have first lived in the all-delightful time of spring, seeing that he was created in the very time of spring, as being the time in which the world also was first made. By sin he cast himself into the dreadful time of winter until God by this all-gracious Sun, his dear Son, dispelled the awful winter, restored this new spring, and again established an eternal Church, which He still goes on to gather together, that it may hereafter live in the eternal enjoyment of God. Now this wonderful change, or as the Psalm speaks, these “years of the right hand of the Most High” have begun, he who lives in this new and eternal spring shall never die, and he who dies in that dreadful winter shall never live. That is, as Christ says, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” For on the latter, that eternal Sun, concerning which David here speaks, is gone down and has set for ever, but on the former, He arises and shines in His eternal light.

Nor is this the only thing that is intended by this mention of the spring and the winter. It more especially refers to that great secret of the prophetic doctrine, that the kingdom or dominion of the Messiah would not be like the political economy of Moses. For that policy and government of Moses is the ministration of the law, by which sin is not only not taken away, but is really increased; or, as Paul saith, becomes “exceeding sinful” because the law shows how great and terrible sin is, and men by it are accused and condemned. Being by it cast into horrid fears, they not only begin to hate the judgment of God and the law itself, by the sentence of which they feel themselves so condemned and killed, but also flee away from God, as Paul wonderfully and copiously sets forth this office of the law and the effects of it.

This is, indeed, to stand at the foot of Mount Sinai, while it horribly shakes and trembles with thunderings and lightnings, being made to rock from its foundation, and while there is such a terror produced all around that it seems as if heaven and earth were rushing together. In truth the light and rays of the sun were darkened with far more heavy and thick clouds than if it had been in the middle of the freezing winter, though it was then the time of spring to this visible world when the light of the sun occasionally beams forth. At that time, He was so far removed that his rays had no effect whatever. So, the nations and the ungodly, who are without the law and lie buried in the winter under their sins, live in greater security, and, as they imagine to themselves, far more happily than the people of God. Because they, even in the time of their spring, endure the terrible tempests of law terrors which are as thunderings and lightnings. For when that all-fair Sun, Christ the Son of God, does not shine into their minds with His splendor, they have none of the joys of the spring to delight or refresh them. Moses fills all things with terror and death by the heavy tempest of his law. Thus, the storms and tempests which variously infest this our air and atmosphere are to us as perpetual prophets and teachers, showing us that it is the same with the minds and consciences of men, and that the godly are often thus overwhelmed with the terrors of the law; who nevertheless, as Paul says, are not under the law, but under grace.

However, as David says, after the times of Moses and the prophets, that joyful time of the Messiah succeeds when the ZUR or Rock Himself of Israel reigns that He might by His free bounty plentifully bestow upon us righteousness and eternal life. This, I say, is that delightful and joyful season, when the whole face of things is changed, as in the spring, to a new and all-gladdening aspect, when, before the clear shining, a genial shower has fallen; that is, when the sweet and healthful voice of the gospel is heard. Afterwards the Sun Himself, Christ, arises in our hearts, and they are raised up and enabled to receive the consolation, the clouds and storms of Moses, together with the thunderings and lightnings of his law, being wholly dispelled. Hereupon all things truly look green, flourish, and blossom. There is a new light and a day full of new joy, gladness and life, like unto which there is no time in the whole of this world’s year. Now all that tempest and winter of clouds, thunderings, sin, death, and all kinds of terrors, are overcome, dispersed, and utterly disappear. There arises an all-clear and all-gladdening day of a new and eternal Passover, or of victorious rejoicing in our risen, living, and eternallyreigning Lord.

This is what David means when he says that the government of the Messiah, his Son, is like unto that spring day, when after a morning of copious and genial rain, the sun rises with a sweet serenity, shines forth, and clothes all things with verdure and beauty. Even so Lactantius, among many other testimonies, thus describes the time of the resurrection of Christ:

Behold! the beauties of the new-born world,

Bright from the bosom of the spring, declare

That all Creation with it God revives!

For, as Christ rises from the dreary grave,

Each tree in foliage smiles; each waiting bud

Bursts into bloom, to hail its risen Lord

Triumphant o’er the dismal realms of death!

¹ Lactantius (c.250-c.325) an advisor to the first “Christian” Roman emperor, Constantine I. The Latin poem De Ave Phonice (The Phoenix) is attributed to him.

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