THE two Testaments are so interwoven that he, who would separate them, does but attempt the destruction of both. Moses and the prophets spoke of Jesus; and Jesus quoted Moses and the prophets. The stories of Genesis sparkle in the epistles, as they illustrate God’s wonderful ways. The pattern wrought in the book would be utterly distorted were the Old Testament to be hidden; and if the Old Testament is not divinely true, the New, which quotes from it, is not reliable.
To all who have ears to hear, the Bible is the word of God, and those who will not hear it in this world must be judged by the Word in the next. We do not argue in favor of the truth of the Bible. We would not even compromise the painting of a master by trying to prove it to be what it evidently is―but we would point out beauties in it, to such as have eyes to see them. And in a kindred spirit we would address bur reader to some of the New Testament gleams of light that shine from the Old.
1.―DARKNESS AND LIGHT.
We open the sacred volume and read, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Now the word of God is not a book of geology, nor of the heavens above us; it is a revelation for our souls. When was this beginning is not discovered to us, but it is sufficient for us, who inhabit this earth, to be aware, that it is not now as it was when God at first created it. Further―though how and why we are not informed―this earth (not the heavens) became desolate and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
A mighty change overtook this earth―desolation, emptiness, darkness, characterized its state. In the New Testament darkness is constantly used as a figure. The Lord often spoke of man’s state by nature as darkness. From heaven He commissioned His servant to turn men by the Word “from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.” Satan and his rule are figured by darkness. The “power of darkness” describes the awful circle in which the unsaved live, while “outer dark ness” figures the immeasurable distance from God where Satan and his shall at length find themselves. There was actual darkness upon the face of the deep, and it in some way seems to be associated with the enemy.
Upon the face of the waters―over the earth, desolate and void, and swathed in gloom―the Spirit of God moved. He was solicitous for it! This is more than geologists can tell us. They, with hammer and chisel, may dig out of the rocks forms of former life on the earth God the Spirit tells us of Himself brooding over the earth, with its death, desolation, and darkness!
And such has been His way with the inhabitants of this earth these many ages. Such, too, has it been with ourselves; for when we were in the darkness of sin, and dark in our souls, and under the power of darkness, God the Spirit was yearning over us. God Himself is the Creator; He also occupies Himself with His creation, fallen and ruined though it be.
The doctrine, that one living organism of its own force arises out of another and prior organism, is infidelity as to God, the Creator, shaped into a form of science. God works and creates by His word. In His ways with us, His beginning will ever be found in the three opening words of the third verse of His Book, “And God said―.” God speaking and life ensuing, and matter evolving that which was not, out of itself; are principles which can never be brought into agreement. “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” (Heb. 11:33Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. (Hebrews 11:3).) “God said” lies at the beginning of our faith. We can no more evolve goodness, holiness, divine life out of our old, sinful, fallen selves, than can rocks evolve natural life out of themselves. The creature cannot create. The living God gives life. By His word we live.
The first word of God over the darkness-covered earth was, “Let there be light!”― “He spake, and it was done”― “and there was light.” Continually, in the New Testament, both God and the Lord Jesus are spoken of as Light, while the people of God are called the children of light, and the promise is held out to all who follow Christ that they shall have the light of life; while of the home above it is said, “There shall be no night there.”
Paul, speaking of Christ in glory at God’s right hand, says, “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor. 4:66For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6).)
The new creation, like the old, commences with, “And God said, Let there be light!” Paul, when describing the work of God in our hearts, illustrates the truth he teaches by God’s work in the desolate and empty earth, as it lay swathed in darkness! No one who is the subject of God’s own powerful word―no one whose heart, once dark, is now illumined with the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, can fail to recognize the same mighty Speaker in Gen. 1:33And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. (Genesis 1:3), and in 2 Cor. 4:66For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6). The voice is the same, the ways of the Speaker are the same, it is God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, who has shined in our hearts. God’s first work with the individual soul, in the darkness of sin, and under the authority of the prince of darkness, is the same as His first work with this earth, under the darkness that was upon the face of its deep; and this work is to bring in light.
Light is His creation. Without it we know neither what sin is, nor what God’s glory is in the face of His Son, who died for our sins. Without God-given-light, man remains in his old, dead, dark state, ignorant in heart of God. Satan would keep the light out of men’s hearts if he could. “If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” But when God speaks it is done! In the heart of the believer the light shines, and gives him the knowledge which no science can teach, even that of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
His glory as Creator is apparent in the dust at our feet, and in the flowers of the field, upon which we tread, but we need light to perceive what the microscope discerns in the dust and in the flower. His glory in His new creation, in His wonderful work of raising His Son, who died, from the dead, and setting Him on high in the glory; needs light in the heart, if it should be known!
Darkness and light are apparent through the Book of God; and in His first words at the fashioning of this earth, is discovered His first work in us, in whose hearts lies the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ.