It seems a design of God, as regards his saints, that there should be in their distinctive and characteristic graces, a deficiency, which even more than those graces marked out His own adorable and Divine Son to be the alone Saviour and Redeemer of sinners. Patient endurance of heavy suffering was the characteristic distinction of Job; but how faulty was it! what impatience mixed with and overshadowed his patience. Faith, producing eminent obedience, marked Abraham's life. But how defectively! In two recorded instances faithful Abraham shewed distrust of God, even to willful falsehood: and if in Joseph's forgiving love we find no recorded failure, yet we find in him an early vanity that called for long and deep correction as a slave and prisoner. The meekness of Moses suffered an eclipse, when they exasperated his spirit, and he distinguished with his lips. So David, so Solomon, and Elijah and Hezekiah; so Peter the courageous, and Saint John, the loving disciple, had recorded failures of temper or conduct. And these saints failed in their characteristic graces. So that this result is to be much noted by us, that while the Old Testament Church, expecting the promised Saviour, as the excellencies of her own witnesses to God's power and love came upon her, might say, "Like these will He be when He comes," there would be cause to add, "far above them all must and will He be" Their foreshadowing of Him is but faint and faulty. None of them can be He: not one, nor all of them together, are sufficient to stand between God and sinners as the Mediator, and so as to put His hand upon both. All these saints shewed themselves sinners. But He though once tempted in all things like as we are was without sin. Being consummated He became, to all who obey Him, the cause of eternal Salvation. So perfect and sufficient a Saviour is Jesus. Daily bless God for Him.
- text taken from Daily Bread - Bring a Few Morning Meditations for the Use of Catholic Christians by Father Richard Waldo Sibthorp