The more we look at the Scriptures, the more they transport us to their scenes. The Bible has the wonderful power of putting us, by faith, in the place it describes: I am there as one of the company and I am conscious I am there in the scenes it describes.
It is this that gives a blessed character to the whole Word of God.
In the Old Testament, we are waiting for a fit Person, and if we look at the New Testament we find Him. In the Gospel of Matthew, we see Him as the Messiah, in Mark as the perfect Servant, in Luke as the Son of man and in John as the Son of God.
The Gospel of John begins before Genesis. As we read through it and the other gospels, we are attracted by the grace we see, and we get the application of this grace in the epistles. In the gospels our eyes of faith see not a carpenter's son, but God manifested in the flesh. The aim of the epistles is to get the soul on the same platform of standing and walk as that of the Lord Jesus.
In the Old Testament we see the unity of the Godhead, and in the New Testament the trinity of the Godhead. In Genesis we see the election of the people of God, in Exodus their redemption, in Leviticus their priestly service and worship, in Numbers their walk and warfare in the wilderness and in Deuteronomy a recapitulation of God's dealings with them up to the time that they are about to enter into the land.
Leviticus is a wonderful book for bringing out the detail of the work of Christ which we do not get elsewhere. Just as we enter into the signification of the sacrifices in Leviticus, so do we enter in worship into the joy of God in the several aspects of the sacrifice of His son.
Oh, the delight of God in His Christ! What a thing it is to have a heart to enter into it! What gives joy to God is the soul's entering into all Christ's work, having the heart bowed with a deepened sense of His worth-Divine Person as He was. All His graces go up to God. We want to be in Mary's place as learners.
If you wish to know Israel's experience after the Church is translated, look at the Psalms. Israel will then be under law again. The difference between Solomon's Song and Ecclesiastes is that in the one we have God Himself, and our heart is too little for Him, but in the other we have the world and all things in it. Our hearts are too large to be filled by it.
Prophecy is as a lamp in a dark place. "Whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place," and we are interested in all that interests Christ.
John closes the Book when he says, "Come." He is perfectly satisfied when he is waiting for Jesus, and then he ceases to write!
Young Christian