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"When, having shown the divergencies, contradictions, and errors in the Bible, we go below the surface to the substance of things, we are obliged to admit that the Bible has not only a human, imperfect, transitory side, but also a divine, perfect, unchangeable, eternal side. Some have wished to see only the former, others only the latter side. To be fully in the right we must recognize that one exists as well as the other."

PIEPENBRING.

CHAPTER VIII.

BACK TO BOTH TESTAMENTS FOR THEIR RECONCILIATION.

I. IN the foregoing discussion the Messianic idea, the sacrificial idea, and the suffering servant idea were, by conscious purpose, kept distinct. It was believed that each one of these lines of thought bore fruitage in a New Testament doctrine, which gained in clearness by being kept distinct from the others.

Along three distinct lines, therefore, to set the purely ethical one side, the Old Testament prepared the way for Christ. And along each one of these lines we find a better picture of the work and nature of Christ in the pre-Christian revelation than in the prevailing exegesis of the Church which has dominated the New Testament, and forced the Old into its mould. The Old Testament doctrine of Messiah led the world to expect a Saviour who would be a Saviour in virtue of his spiritual leadership. The doctrine of sacrifice and Paul's treatment of it represents Jesus as a Saviour, because he has by his death on the cross forever done away with all arbitrary and fictitious barriers which men have thought separated them from God, and by his work among men as Son of God he has shown that as he, so God cares more for sincerity and uprightness than for sacrifices. Lastly, the Old Testament idea of the suffering righteous, who suffer with and for

their people, and the later Jewish notion of the One servant of God in particular, who is regarded as a sinoffering, set before us the doctrine of vicarious atonement in a way at once so profound, so natural, and so rational, that no one can reject it ; an idea which comes to our own age with trenchant force. Here we are led to expect a Saviour who suffers and dies with and for his people, who gives up his life that men may take his truth and live. The New Testament, interpreted in the light of the Old, comes to our age with a Christ touched with a feeling of our infirmities; with a Christ who is most truly divine, because most truly human; who is most truly Saviour, because he was most truly unselfish.

2. Yet the question will arise, and it deserves an answer, whether Jesus was in reality the Messiah, the Christ of God, in whose very person the two Testaments are locked together.

There is certainly a tendency among liberals to-day to discard more and more the use of the title which the early Church gave to Jesus. It is argued with much learning and much justice that the Messiah of the Jew, the Messiah foretold in his sacred Scriptures, has not yet come. The Reform Jews have ceased to expect such Messiah, and the Orthodox Jews, with much show of reason, stoutly deny that Jesus of Nazareth can lay any claim to such title.

If we turn to the New Testament for help in the solution of the problem, we seem to get little satisfaction. We are given results, but not the processes that led to them. Or, rather, we cannot but note many missing links between an Old Testament prophecy and

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its purported New Testament fulfilment. On the basis of the Gospel tradition alone there is some ground for the supposition that the claim to Messianic dignity was an after-thought of Jesus, — that he was drawn into it by the enthusiasm of his followers, while it was his own purpose to make no such claims. However that may be, it is manifest that the whole apostolic doctrine is built upon the belief that Jesus was the promised Messiah. If Jesus was not such Messiah, Christianity was misnamed, and Jesus ought not to be forced to wear a title which he does not desire, and which mocks history. Professor Pfleiderer, in his account of the conversion of Paul, intimates that when it was suggested that Jesus was the fulfilment of one and another of the prophecies, long supposed to be Messianic, Paul would have no means of refuting the claim. At any rate, Paul did not refute the claim. And in Pauline theology the whole Old Testament looks forward to Christ. "All God's promises are yea and amen in Christ Jesus." The whole apostolic theology falls if Jesus is not Christ.

3. Rash and fantastic claims on the part of many have caused some very broad statements to be made within the limits of the Orthodox churches. Dr. Briggs has given up many prophecies long counted as Messianic, and the others he has interpreted in such a way as to very materially change the picture of the Messiah. presented. Hengstenberg, Oehler, Riehm, and Westcott admit that often there is a wide gap between the intention of the original writer and the New Testament application of his words. Nitzsch laid it down. as a rule that a prophecy must not foretell the future

accurately; it would upset human affairs, paralyze effort, and introduce iron-bound necessity where freedom reigns. So, then, "prediction must not disturb history." Hengstenberg, Hävernick, and Tholuck accept this rule. So also does Kueper. And he is at great pains to prove that the prophecies did not meet with exact fulfilment. Modern criticism places the date of the Book of Daniel subsequent to the events it narrates, and admits its historical accuracy. Kueper says it was written before the events it describes, and, bound by his rule, goes to great lengths to prove that it was not literally fulfilled. Such are some of the eccentricities into which an effort to defend a certain kind of predictive prophecy has betrayed scholars who, in every other respect, show that they are in their right mind. It has been asked whether Professor Briggs is speaking seriously when he mentions three phases of prophecy, the dream, the vision or ecstatic state, and the enlightened spiritual discernment. Evidently he is, and does believe that God spoke to men in dreams. Neither would he admit, with David Hume, that this is the same as for the same men to dream that God spoke to them.

The failure of all these scholars to find a method of defence that attacks the problem seriously, and establishes the desired thesis conclusively, is shown by the ever recurring confession that a new discussion is necessary.

The questions that arise and ask a settlement are legion. What is the relation of Old Testament to New? How far does prophecy anticipate the gospel? To what extent, or in what sense, if at all, was Jesus

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