IN turning to Mr. Waldegrave's second proposition, that “in all points upon which the New Testament gives us instruction, it is, as containing the full, the clear, and the final manifestation of the divine will, our rightful guide to the interpretation of the Old,” we wish particularly to guard against being misunderstood. There is much of truth contained in it, beyond all doubt; but all the force that it can justly exert on any Christian mind is the result of what we acknowledge as cheerfully as our author himself. There are distinctions between the Old Testament and the New, which no Christian can fail to recognize. The authority is the same in both; for both are the word of God. The grand central object is the same; for both testify of Christ. “The law, the prophets, and the psalms,” as well as the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse, have hint for their glorious, never-failing theme. But how differently is he presented in these two grand departments of divine revelation! The difference is felt even by those who would be at a loss to define its nature and explain its cause. Much that Mr. W. says on this point is so self-evident, that our only wonder is that he should have thought it needful to say it at all, At the same time he is far from having succeeded, as it appears to us, in illustrating the most important aspects of his subject; and the arguments he has advanced seem anything but conclusive, in favor of the principle of interpretation for which he contends.
It is not so obvious as Mr. W. would intimate (page 15), that in New Testament revelations as to the future, “figure is the exception, literality the rule.” That this may be the fact as to the whole volume, we do not dispute; but in regard to its prophetic passages, which can alone decide prophetic questions, the statement is far from being undisputable. The numerous parables by which our Lord conveyed prophetic instruction to his hearers, as well as other obvious considerations, will at once occur to our readers. But as this is not the basis on which Mr. W. rests his defense of the principle in question, we would not bestow upon it a more extended notice than he gives to it himself. His great argument we give in his own words: — “The New Testament has this distinct and incontestable claim to the right of arbitration, that it is the inspired record of the words of that Great Prophet, of whom it was said, 'him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you’” p. 15.
In illustration and support of his argument, Mr. W. expounds the passage in Peter's discourse, from which these words are quoted. He explains that Jesus is the Prophet of whom Moses wrote and Peter spake. He refers to the gospels, as containing much that this great Prophet taught, but contends that the Acts and Epistles may with equal truth be regarded as ids oracular communications. He shows that by these the previously “imperfect revelation of the Divine will” is completed (many things being thus revealed, which were hidden before); and that the New Testament is not only supplementary to the Old, but often expository of its contents. He proves that, in certain cases Old Testament institutions are abrogated by Christ in the New Testament; and from the whole he infers, that on prophetic subjects the literal portions of the New Testament are of greater weight, and entitled to more consideration, than the predictions of the older volume of inspiration.
To the argument drawn from the setting aside of Levitical rites, and the passing away of typical ceremonies, we have already replied; showing, at the same time, how seriously our author's reasoning arrays Scripture against Scripture, and exalts one part of it at the expense of another. Nor do the particulars now enumerated require much remark. It may well be questioned whether the fulfillment of the Jewish lawgiver's prediction in our blessed Lord, as declared by Peter in the third of Acts, constitutes the highest feature of the distinctive character possessed by the New Testament. Questions might be raised as to the meaning of the word “prophet” in the text on which Mr. W.'s discourse is founded. Isaiah the foretelling of future events that which is chiefly indicated by that term as applied by Moses to himself, and to that blessed One whose advent he predicts Isaiah it not rather as the founder, by divine appointment, of the legal economy or dispensation that he speaks of himself, while he foretells the coming of another, by whom a better dispensation should be established? Moses and the law were to be heard, till Christ should come, and the gospel be introduced; or, as the evangelist has it, “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:1717For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. (John 1:17)). In either case, it would seem rather to be the divine authority of the lawgiver than the supernatural foresight of the seer, that is indicated by the word prophet, as used in the text under consideration.
Nor do the words— “him shall ye hear in all things” — imply that his revelations are more strictly true than were those made by means of Moses. The One of whom the passage treats was to be “a prophet,” says Moses, “like unto me.” The authority of Moses, as their divinely appointed legislator and the founder of their system, was acknowledged by the Jews; but he himself foretold the coming of another of equal (he does not say higher) authority; and him they were to hear in all things. Moses himself thus sets his seal to the mission of Christ, by which his own temporary economy was to be superseded and replaced; but until thus superseded and replaced, Moses was to be heard, and his injunctions to be obeyed as implicitly as Christ and his words are now to be submitted to by all. In fact, we have Christ's own declaration to assure us, that such as truly heard the one, reverently and obediently listened to the other also. “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.” (John 5:4646For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. (John 5:46).)
In a word, neither Moses nor Peter lay down a canon of interpretation in the passage on which our author builds so much. The question in Deut. 18, and in Acts 3, is not whether the Old Testament or the New is to be preferred as fixing the sense of a disputed passage, but, whether Jesus was to be received as the Messiah. “No,” said the Jews, “we know that God spake by Moses, and we will cleave to Moses.” “Moses himself commands you to receive Jesus,” was Peter's reply! A cogent reply it was, worthy of the Holy Ghost, under whose inspiration it was made. But to infer from it, that the meaning of Old Testament prophecies is to be authoritatively determined by a few passages of the New Testament, deemed literal and clear by those who make such a use of them, would be to fix upon it a sense which, we are bold to maintain, the apostle never contemplated; it would be to draw from it a deduction, as contrary to the passage itself rightly understood, as it is derogatory to the book of inspiration as a whole.
We shall have occasion to return to this chapter in the Acts, but would now invite the attention of the Christian reader to the whole subject of the connection between the Old and New Testaments. It is one of profoundest interest in itself; while its bearings on the millenarian question are quite as important as our esteemed author represents them to be. The reader himself must judge, whether the path, to which Mr. W. invites us, be one in which the brighter lights of the later revelations become really available for the elucidation of those, which are more obscure in character, and of more ancient date.
That which, first of all, distinguishes the New Testament, is the record it contains of the perfect revelation of God himself, in the person of his Son. Viewed as an inspired writing, its authority cannot be greater than that of the equally inspired writings of the Old Testament. But as to its subject—that which it presents to us, we no sooner open it, and begin to read, than we find ourselves in the presence of God himself. “God was manifested in the flesh.” It is God who speaks in the Old Testament as really as in the New. But in the one, he is in the distance, or causing his voice to be heard from amid the thick darkness in which He dwells; in the other, “Emmanuel” — “God with us” —is the wonder which bursts upon us in the first chapter of the book. “Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself” (Isa. 14:1515Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. (Isaiah 14:15)) is the utterance even of the evangelical prophet, as he is often termed. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him,” is what the evangelist affirms, (John 1:1818No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. (John 1:18)); and it is this which stamps its character on the New Testament throughout. God himself is revealed in the person of Christ. No doubt he was the prophet like unto Moses, whose coming Moses had foretold. But while Moses was “faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after,” Christ was as “a Son over his own house.” He was “counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honor than the house.” And while “every house is builded by some one, he that built all things (which Christ did) is God,” (Heb. 3)The true, distinctive glory of the New Testament shines upon us in the fact, that “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” Nor is even this the whole. Not only was he, as a messenger, thus pre-eminently glorious; he was himself the glory of the message. God was revealed not only by but in him, who was “the brightness of his glory, the express image of his person.” “The Word was made flesh,” says the evangelist, “and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” “He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father,” was the language of this blessed One Himself. The Old Testament contains nothing resembling this. The will of God is there partially disclosed; his creating power and providential wisdom are exhibited; his government of Israel and the nations is copiously treated of; man's dreary history is largely recorded; the grace of God to individuals is placed in striking relief, while testimony is borne to their faith, and its precious fruits; Christ himself is foreshadowed and foretold, from the pronouncing of the curse on the serpent, and the first institution of slain sacrifices, in Gen. 3 and 4, to the last of the long line of Israel's prophets, and the re-establishment of Levitical rites, on the return from Babylon, in Ezra's and Nehemiah's day. But God himself was not revealed. “The Lord hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness,” is Solomon's thought of God, in erecting for him the temple in which he deigned to take up his abode. But there, as in the tabernacle which had preceded it, everything testified of the barriers which sin had raised between God and his people, and of the distance and reserve which marked the relations existing between him and them. Foreshadowings there were of the Savior, in whose coming this reserve was to be laid aside, and by whose sacrifice this distance was to be destroyed. But it is in the New Testament that we find ourselves actually in the presence of Jesus, who, while a man and the lowliest of men, was yet the full revelation, the perfect display of all that God is, in his wisdom, power, holiness, and love. All this was manifested in him, moreover, in perfect grace to the sinner. With wisdom, which confounded his adversaries by a word—power, which controlled the elements, and to which devils themselves were subject—holiness, so absolute and intrinsic, that contact with man's evil could not defile him, his love and grace were such, that a poor sinful Samaritan woman could freely converse with him, while he revealed himself to her as the Savior, and his Father as the One who sought such as she, to worship him in spirit and in truth! God, fully revealed in grace in the person of his Son, is that which constitutes the inexpressible charm with which the New Testament is invested, to all who have been convinced of the reality of their lost estate as sinners against God. “The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.” “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost!”
Another distinctive feature of the New Testament is the record it contains of the accomplishment of redemption by the cross. In Old Testament times, it was not only that God was not fully revealed, but that man had little or no access to him. True, he deigned to fix his earthly abode in the midst of his people Israel, and to speak of himself as dwelling “between the cherubims.” But who could venture to approach him there? One man only, and he but once a year, and even then it was with blood newly shed, and amid clouds of incense covering the mercy-seat lest he should die. These were the types of that sacrifice by which guilty man was to draw near to God; but so long as the types continued, “the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest.” Christ only could open the way. To accomplish this he had not only to reveal God to man, but had to present himself a sacrifice on man's behalf to God. The whole nature and character of God had to be manifested and glorified with regard to sin, in order for any of our sinful race to be admitted to his immediate presence. Sin had to be put away. The believer well knows by whom this has been accomplished. One only was equal to the mighty undertaking; but by him it has been once and forever achieved. He “put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” At his expiring cry, “It is finished,” “the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.” No veil remains between God and the sinner who approaches in the name of Jesus. “Boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say his flesh,” is now the assured, indubitable privilege of every true believer. But where, save in the New Testament, is this made known to us? And what more real distinction can exist between the Old Testament and the New, than the one we are now considering? Many prophets and righteous men had desired to see and hear what the disciples saw and heard when Jesus was on earth. How would they have rejoiced, had they been permitted, as we are, to read of the exaltation of the risen Jesus to the right hand of God—of free remission through his blood—and of access through him, without a single interposing veil, to the immediate presence of God himself! Yet such are some of the wonders which the New Testament distinctively unfolds.
But there is one characteristic feature of the later volume of inspiration—a most important one—on which Mr. W.., in his opening lecture, bestows the slightest possible notice. He does indeed say (page 23) “that there are many things which Moses and the prophets—even if they knew them—did not commit to writing,” and acids, that “Jesus, however, has perfected the volume of inspiration.” But it is not thus slightly that the New Testament itself treats of one grand department of truth, the primary and exclusive revelation of which it claims as its own. The divine glory of Messiah's person, and the wondrous efficacy of his atoning death, had been variously typified and foretold in the Old Testament; and that which, as to these verities, distinguishes the New Testament, is that it records what the other only foreshadows and predicts. But as to one vast range of truth, we have the distinct announcement in the New Testament, that it had been in all previous ages unknown and unrevealed. Hear the Apostle, who, writing to the Ephesians, “of the dispensation of the grace of God,” which had been given him to them-ward, says, “How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery: (as I wrote afore in few words, whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ); which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (Eph. 3:2-52If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: 3How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, 4Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) 5Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; (Ephesians 3:2‑5)). Again, he describes the objects of his vocation to be “to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ” (verse 9). Writing to the Colossians, the same apostle speaks of Christ's body, “which is the church; whereof,” he says, “I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill (or fully to preach, see margin) the Word of God; even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to the saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you the hope of glory” Col. 1:21-2721And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled 22In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: 23If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister; 24Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church: 25Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; 26Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: 27To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: (Colossians 1:21‑27). In these passages, we have the distinct mention of a certain mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, which from the beginning of the world had been hid in God, which had been hid from ages and from generations, and was only now made manifest to the saints. Of this previously unrevealed mystery it is said, that by revelation it had been made known to Paul; and that Christ had now revealed it to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. The knowledge of this mystery Paul represents as the dispensation of the grace of God which had been given him, in order that he might make all men see what is the fellowship of this mystery; he speaks of the saints as those to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery; and he declares that he had been made a minister according to the dispensation of God, committed to him for the completing of the word of God. Such we take to be the force of the expression “to fulfill,” or “fully to preach the word of God.” Evidently that word was incomplete till this mystery was made known.
We have no intention, in the present paper, to consider the subject of this mystery, as it is developed in detail in the two epistles from which the above quotations are made. The proper place for considering it at large may be, when we come to discuss our author's statements on the subject in one of his subsequent lectures. For the present, let it suffice to refer to the passages themselves, and to one verse in Eph. 3, not yet quoted, which prove, that the heavenly unity of the church with Christ by virtue of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost is the mystery of which the Apostle writes. These are the words in which he himself defines it: “That the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.” (Eph. 3:66That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel: (Ephesians 3:6).) “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” are the terms in which he sums up this mystery in Col. 1; but then he declares that it is “among the Gentiles” that “the riches of the glory of this mystery” have their scope and their development, Now nothing can be more obvious, even to a cursory reader of God's word, than that the Old Testament abounds with predictions of blessing to the Gentiles under Messiah's reign. Our post-millenarian brethren will, at all events, admit this. It was no unrevealed mystery that, when the Seed should come to whom the promises were made, both Jews and Gentiles should be blessed under him, and by him. But that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the seine body—that believing Jews and believing Gentiles should be incorporated in one, being brought thus into a position of perfect equality with each other, by both, and both alike, becoming the body of Christ; that there should be thus a community or corporation of persons, not only blessed under Christ and by Christ, but blessed in him and with him, “quickened together,” “raised up together,” and “made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ,” as the epistle to the Ephesians declares; that Christ should be in such, the hope of glory—this is, indeed, what had been hid in God from all former ages and generations, and what was only revealed to the apostles and prophets of the new economy, since the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of God, and the descent of the Holy Ghost from heaven.
The importance of this subject, in its bearing on the millenarian question, can scarcely be over-rated. Let it be once assumed that the subject of the prophecies is identical with that of the epistles—that the latter contain nothing but what was more obscurely revealed in the former—and the consequence is inevitable. The prophecies are spiritualized in order to raise them towards the level of the epistles; the epistles are brought down to the level of the spiritual sense put upon the prophecies; and each department of divine truth is thus shorn of its peculiar, distinctive character. The church of God, indwelt by the Holy Ghost and thus made “one body” and “one Spirit” with its risen and glorified Head in heaven, is confounded in men's thoughts with the whole company of the redeemed from the beginning to the end of time. All its peculiar blessedness as one with Christ, whether in his present rejection, or in the glory in which he is by and by to be revealed, is reduced to what is common to saints of every dispensation. Old Testament predictions, concerning such as are to be blessed under Christ and by Christ, are regarded in the spiritual sense sought to be imposed upon them, as expressive of the portion which pertains to those, and those only, who are blessed in him and with him, “members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” This is a theme which we cannot at present pursue; but here is to be found, we are fully persuaded, the fundamental error of the Bampton lecturer, and of nearly, if not quite, all who reject premillennial views. We hope, hereafter, to give the subject the fullest examination in the light of God's word. We turn from it now, to point out some other considerations connected with the distinction between the Old Testament and the New.
The three great characteristics of the New Testament we have seen to be, that God is there made known as fully revealed in Christ; accomplished redemption is there proclaimed, with all its blessed results; and there we have the unfolding of the previously unrevealed mystery of the heavenly unity of the church with Christ, by virtue of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Two results naturally ensue, and may be seen to pervade the volume. First the subjects with which it prominently and distinctively deals are not such as relate to God's government of creation, Israel, and the nations, with which the Old Testament is so largely occupied; but the more vital and momentous questions of eternity, the soul, life, death, heaven and hell. We are far from intending that the Old Testament says nothing of the latter class of subjects, or that the New Testament is silent on the former. It is with the general features—the predominant character of both volumes, that we are at present concerned; and who can doubt that eternity is stamped upon the one, as prominently as time is impressed upon the other? Now it is to God's government of the world that prophecy applies; and hence the extent to which the Old Testament consists of prophecy. In proportion as the subject is touched upon in the New Testament, it becomes prophetic; but even in its prophetic parts (as Matt. 13, and 24, 25; 2 Thess. 2; and the Apocalypse as a whole), eternity is connected with what takes place in time, in a way but little known in the Old Testament. Then, secondly, the distinction between Jew and Gentile, so maintained in the older volume of God's word, begins in the latter one to fade away before the glory of Jesus, the incarnate Son of God; it disappears before his cross, by which the middle wall of partition is broken down; and one essential feature of “the mystery,” revealed by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, is this, that in a risen and ascended Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free. Not that these distinctions have finally ceased in the world, viewed as the subject of God's government. So far from this, “Jews,” “Gentiles,” and “the Church of God” form the present triple distribution of mankind, in an apostolic precept enjoining upon believers an inoffensive course towards all the three. (1 Cor. 10:3232Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God: (1 Corinthians 10:32).) It is in the church, the body of Christ, that these, and all mere human distinctions, have passed away. “Male and female,” as really as “Jew and Gentile,” is an unknown, unrecognized distinction, in regard to the oneness of believers with an earth-rejected, heavenly Christ. (Gal. 3:2828There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)).
The connections between the Old Testament and the New we reserve as the subject of our next communication.