The Abiding Value
of the Old Testament

GEORGE L. ROBINSON

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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

THE ABIDING VALUE
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

GEORGE L. ROBINSON, Ph. D.
PROFESSOR OLD TESTAMENT LITERATURE AND EXEGESIS
MCCORMICK THEOLOGICAL SEMINART

' The word unto the prophets spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken." — Emerson.

Young Men's Christian Association
Press. New York. Nineteen Eleven

Copyright, 1911
BY THE
International Committee of
Young Men's Christian associations

To
MARY— LEE

THE ABIDING VALUE OF
THE OLD TESTAMENT
EVER since Marcion and the Gnos
tics emphasized the antithesis
between the God of the Old
Testament and the God of the New,
extreme views have prevailed among
men as to whether the Old Testament
is really an essential part of Christianity.
Some are disposed to cut the New Tes
tament aloof from the Hebrew Scrip
tures altogether, because, as they claim,
Christianity can live on quite as well
without them. Others regard the Old
Testament as "the millstone about the
neck of Christianity, ' ' a stumbling-block
to Christians as much as the Cross is to
the Jews. While others, who are not
so explicitly antagonistic in their atti-
5

THE HEBREW CUSTODIANS
tude, have no adequate appreciation of
the preciousness of the treasure which
has come down to them from remote
antiquity. The same men, it should
be noted, are usually lacking also in
their appreciation of the New Testa
ment. For, as Dr. George Adam Smith
observes, "It is one of not the least
faults of a merely academic criticism,
that it never appeals to Christian stand
ards except when it would disparage
the men of the Old Covenant. " (Jeru
salem, II, 343.)
Our estimate of the worth of the Old
Testament will depend largely upon
our attitude to the Hebrews as the
recipients and custodians of God's reve
lation to men. Their history is "like
a piece of shot silk ; hold it at one angle
and you see dark purple, hold it at
another and you see bright golden
tints." Too often the Old Testament
is studied with purely aesthetic motives.
Frequently it is approached from the

CHRISTIAN ROOTS: HEBREW SOIL
strictly scientific point of view. But
neither — nor both — of these methods is
adequate to unlock its wealth. The
Old Testament will not yield itself to
mere aesthetic or scientific investigation.
The Old Testament, above all other
books, has spiritual and religious value
as the record of God's revelation to the
world. The roots of Christian teaching
go deep down into Hebrew soil, and to
understand the whole tree one must
study the roots. The institutions of
the Hebrews are types of Christian
truth. Christianity, as well as the
Bible, has its Old Testament half. The
Old Testament is an integral part of
the Word of God, a source of inspira
tion, and a guide to ethical life. The
problem of our day is to rediscover its
value and to portray it to men.

The Old Testament Has Intrinsic
Value of its Own
THAT the Old Testament has
historical value is obvious to every
student of antiquity. It is the
Ariadne's thread to the archaeologist.
(Cf. Genesis 10 and 14. ) It is likewise
the fountain head of what is known as
"the philosophy of history. " The He
brews were the first to take a teleolog-
ical view of the world, the first to
interpret human events in terms of
God's providence. Other histories dis
played the disciplinary love of God,
but it was left for the Hebrews to
discern that love and to describe it in
terms of God's love. To them it was
not enough to study mere events, they
sought the underlying principles and

LITERARY QUALITY
showed the nexus of cause and effect.
Ottley, in eulogizing this quality in
Hebrew historians, goes so far as to
define their inspiration as "the ability
to see God's hand in human events."
The literary excellence, too, of the
Old Testament is widely recognized.
The charm of its simplicity, the variety
of its imagery, the grace of its diction,
the melody of its rhythm, and the rich
ness of its vocabulary and thought, are
conspicuous features of the whole Old
Testament — of its history, biography,
oratory, prophecy and poetry alike.
Even our own English vocabulary has
been enriched by words taken over from
the Hebrew, such as Messiah, Sabbath,
manna, Nazirite, seraph, cherub, shekel,
satan, shibboleth, and many others.
Almost countless expressions and phrases
of our everyday speech come directly
from the Old Testament: for example,
"See eye to eye," "Let us eat and
drink; for tomorrow we die," "Precept
9

RELIGIOUS ORIGINALITY
upon precept, line upon line," "The
shadow of a great rock in a weary land,
"Without money and without price,"
¦ 'Peace like a river, ' ' ' 'Everlasting life, ' '
etc. , etc. As a monograph on compara
tive religion, also, the Old Testament
is unique. Scant indeed would be the
sources handed down from antiquity
were the Old Testament of the Hebrews
lost. This is true not alone because of
its quality but also because of its char
acter and genius. Above all the other
religions of antiquity, that of the He
brews is conspicuous for originality.
The Hebrews seem to have had a special
talent for truth that was theistic and for
verities that were eternal. Through
their fertility of conception, which bears
the unmistakable marks of inspiration,
they discovered some truths once for
all, truths which have ever since been
regarded as essential factors in all true
religion. Primary among these is their
conception of God. The Jewish doctrine
10

THE MAJOR PREMISE— GOD
of God is absolutely unique. To the
Hebrew mind, Jehovah is not only a
majestic sovereign, strong and terrible,
but He is personal, holy, merciful, right
eous and good: a Father, also, who
pitieth His children, and who, though
transcendent, condescends to hold com
munion and fellowship with the hum
blest of His saints. The Old Testament
never attempts to prove the existence
of God; it assumes this as axiomatic.
It is "the fool" who says in his heart,
"There is no God" (Ps. 14:1). "God
first ' ' is the Hebrew watchword ; accord- .
ingly everything is traced up to Him as
Sovereign, supreme and first. (Cf. Mac-
Gregor, Messages of the Old Testa
ment, lOf.) The frequent anthropo
morphisms, or human appearances of
God in the person of the Angel of the
Covenant, instead of detracting from
the Hebrew idea of God, rather em
phasized the personality of God, and
actually prepared for the incarnation —
11

A NATIONAL CONSCIENCE
the transient paving the way for the
permanent. The Hebrews also discovered con
science. In due time they even pro
duced an order of men who became a
conscience for the nation. Modern
prophets too frequently shrink from
being a conscience unto their people.
In order to express Israel's moral sense
of obligation to God, Moses formulated
a comprehensive code of civil and reli
gious law, which lifted them above the
plane of their heathen contemporaries.
Their neighbors were content to worship
Nature ; the Hebrews, on the contrary,
early discovered that the law which
declares the will of God is better than
nature or "the heavens" which tell of
His glory: "The heavens declare the
glory of God .... but the law of
Jehovah (in contrast) is perfect" (Ps.
19:1, 7). They also taught men to
pray, giving expression to their desires
through sacrifices, which was the antique
12

PRAYER, FAITH AND SERVICE
manner of obtaining the divine favor.
Isaac, for example, entreated Jehovah
for his wife, literally, "offered sweet
smelling fragrance"; for the word in
the original, atar, which is translated
"entreated," is akin to that in our
English expression "attar of roses"
(Gen. 25:21). The Hebrews also cul
tivated faith, as the essential element in
religion. And they emphasized duty,
in particular the primary obligations of
honesty, righteousness, obedience, and
charity. They even enunciated for the
first time what might be called the
germ of "Christian Endeavor," as, for
example, when Malachi commends the
priests who "turned many away from
iniquity" (Mai. 2:6), or when the He
brew sage declares that ' 'he that watereth
shall be watered also himself" (Prov.
11:25). The Hebrews were the first
also of the nations to teach the sacred
character of patriotism: for example,
Zebulun and Naphtali are praised in the
13

GOD'S HIGH SCHOOL
Song of Deborah for having jeoparded
their lives unto the death upon the high
places of the field (Judg. 5:18). Immor
tality likewise (Pss. 16 and 17) and
redemption (Isa. 63:8), forgiveness of
sin (Ps. 32) and victory over death (Isa.
26:19, Dan. 12:2), are all carefully
unfolded, with greater or lesser fullness,
in the Old Testament — not so fully,
however, as to preclude the necessity of
the incarnation. It was left to Christ
to bring life and immortality to light;
He it was who filled with richer, deeper
ethical content the rudimentary forms
which the Hebrews were as yet unable
to appreciate. For we must ever re
member that while God sent the nations
to common school and Israel to high
school, so to speak, He sent the disci
ples to college at the feet of Christ.
Thus He revealed Himself "by divers
portions." Most remarkable also is the fact that
in the Old Testament the great truths
14

CONCRETE EXAMPLES
of religion are presented not in abstract
form but concretely, and indeed so at
tractively that the reader is charmed by
their simplicity and beauty, and by the
freshness of Hebrew life and faith.
Take, for instance, some of the great
characters of Old Testament history.
In the story of Noah, what a parable is
there of encouragement to those who
are misunderstood, misinterpreted and
scoffed at; in the career of Abraham,
what an instructive illustration of the
summons which must come to us all to
go out into the great unknown country
of the other life ; in the ambitious, un
scrupulous character of Jacob, what a
likeness to the spiritual biography of
many a man; in the story of Joseph,
what a parable of the way to bear
adversity; in that of Gideon, what a
summons to faithful endeavor with as
surance of victory; in Samson, what a
lesson of the way in which the noblest
opportunities of birth and power may
15

MASTERPIECES OF ART
be prostituted ; in Samuel, what a splen
did type both of a normal religious
childhood and of a normal religious life ;
in Isaiah, what a stately example of
one who recognized that public affairs
demand the devoted service of the
holiest and most consecrated men; in
Jeremiah, what a model of personal,
individual moral responsibility; while
in Job, tried in the furnace of affliction,
what imperishable evidence that the
present life is all too short for the real
ization of a divine theodicy of perfect
justice, and of the inevitability of a hfe
beyond. In comparison with such great mas
terpieces of religious art — such living,
throbbing characters — how unimportant
and insignificant are the alleged infelici
ties and blemishes in the Old Testament
to which men sometimes superficially
point the finger of disapproval: for
example, polygamy, divorce, slavery,
revenge, ritual, the vindictiveness of the
16

THE BEAM IN OUR OWN EYE
psalmists, and judgment; the extent
and character of which have been so
greatly exaggerated by the enemies of
the Old Testament. Granted that po
lygamy was practiced by the patriarchs
and others, and indeed was even pro
vided for in the Deuteronomic law
(21 : 15ff ), Mormonism is a vastly fouler
blot upon the page of our history in
this twentieth Christian century than
the polygamy practiced by the Hebrews
is upon the Old Testament. Not one
of the prophets was a polygamist.
Granted, also, that divorce was allowed
by Moses, we know on Christ's testi
mony that "from the beginning it was
not so," but that Moses, because of the
hardness of Israel's hearts suffered them
to do so (Matt. 19 : 8). Today in Chris
tian Chicago alone there are doubtless
ten times as many divorces as there
were among the ancient Hebrews. And
granted that slavery was practiced
among the Israelites of ancient times,
17

MITIGATIONS OF THE LAW
the slavery of their day was very mate
rially mitigated by the regulation of
the Year of Jubilee, which brought
complete release to every chattel son
of Jacob. Granted that the law of
revenge stands as a recognized principle
on the Hebrew statute books, so that
men were legally permitted to exact
"eye for eye and tooth for tooth," it
should never be forgotten that this
semi-barbarous statute, this lex talionis
of the Hebrews, was an immense ad
vance over the unrestricted vengeance
of paganism, which exacted two eyes
for one or as many as it was possible to
take. Moreover, it should be remem
bered that the principle underlying this
very law still forms the basis of the
civil law of all Christian civilized nations
throughout the world. And again,
granted that ritual bulks large in the
early laws of the Pentateuch, the
prophets of Israel differentiated sharply,
as Jesus later did, between the essential
18

THE GOSPEL IN THE PROPHETS
and non-essential in religion, and thus
enunciated the principle of progress and
development which enabled Judaism to
meet successfully every new emergency.
Isaiah asks, "What unto me is the
multitude of your sacrifices ? saith
Jehovah: I have had enough of the
burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of
fed beasts; and I delight not in the
blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of
he-goats" (Isa. 1:11). And Micah,
his younger contemporary, still more
explicitly asserts, ' ' He hath showed
thee, O man, what is good; and what
doth Jehovah require of thee, but to
do justly, and to love kindness, and to
walk humbly with thy God ?" (Mic.
6 : 8). Granted, I say, that the psalmists
sometimes appear vindictive, and utter
imprecations upon their enemies (Pss.
109 and 136), even Paul, the apostle,
facing the headsman's block, did not
forget the offence of Alexander the
coppersmith (2 Tim. 4:14). And,
19

JUDGMENT
once more, granted that the Old Tes
tament frequently tells of judgment,
and paints solemn pictures of universal
doom upon those who disobey the com
mands of Jehovah- God, the New Tes
tament is far more explicit in the em
phasis it places on eternal doom. It is
indeed Jesus Himself who describes the
doom of hell as a place of outer dark
ness and of weeping and gnashing of
teeth (Matt. 25). It was His loving lips
that shaped this form of words, so heart-
touching in its wailing but so decisive
in its proclamation of blackness, home-
lessness and sorrow. In the words of
the late Dr. Alexander Maclaren, that
"prince of preachers" and king of
expositors, "the religion of Jesus Christ
was no mere soft and pliant sympathetic
helpfulness ; it could smite and stab and
be severe, and knit its brow, and speak
stern words, as all true service must.
For it is not service but cruelty to
sympathize with the sinner and say
20

LOVE ALSO IS STERN
nothing in condemnation of his sin."
(Expositions of Holy Scripture; on
Matt. 20:28, p. 76.) There are, of
necessity, two sides to moral religion,
one stern, the other tender. The law,
it is true, speaks in stern imperatives;
but the gospel is as rigid in its require
ments as the law; in fact, its demands
and penalties are in several instances
even more severe than those of the
law.

21

II

The Old Testament is the Inter
preter or the New
WE frequently hear men say that
the New Testament is the
key to the Old, but it is
equally true that the Old Testament is
the interpreter of the New. The New
Testament is conceived in the womb of
Hebrew thought. Pedagogically as
well as apologetically the Old Testa
ment is an indispensable part of Chris
tianity. "No scripture is of private
interpretation. ' '
Few men adequately appreciate what
the Old Testament has meant to Chris
tianity. The Old Testament canon
has had a history in the Christian church
as well as in the Jewish. It has
wrought itself into the very warp and
22

FROM EVERLASTING, GOD
woof of Christianity. This was possible
because the essence of the Old Testa
ment is love. Even the Decalogue is
introduced by a preface which implicitly
states that it was because Jehovah loved
Israel that He gave them a code of
laws: "1 am Jehovah thy God who
brought thee out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage," there
fore, "Thou shalt have no other gods
before me" (Exod. 20:2, 3). Men are
wont to say that the Old Testament
reveals a God of justice, whereas the
New Testament, a God of love. Such
a statement is much narrower than the
facts. The God of the Old Testament
is also the God of the New, and His
name is love: to this the Psalms, Deu
teronomy, and especially the prophecies
of Hosea bear witness. The Old Tes
tament, indeed, describes God as dwell
ing in a temple, the New Testament
as tabernacling in the heart. Ancient
temples had no windows, Deity dwelt
23

THE OLD TESTAMENT NATIONAL
in thick darkness (1 Kings 8 : 12) ; in the
New Testament also God dwells in
mystery, but it is the mystery of light.
According to the Old Testament, God
breathed into man the breath of life
(Gen. 2:7); according to Paul, "In
him we live and move and have our
being ' ' (Acts 17 : 28). The Old Testa
ment gives prominence to the solidarity
of the nation; the New Testament to
the value of the individual. The mes
sages of the prophets are emphatically
social, those of Christ individual and
evangelistic. The popular national note
of the Old Testament has been repeat
edly echoed and re-echoed throughout
the history of the Christian Church.
"The Apostolic church worked offi
cially upon the democratic precedents
set her throughout the law and history
of the Old Covenant." (G. A. Smith,
Jerusalem, I, 455.) Martial psalms,
like the 68th, have been sung on the
plains of the Palatinate, from the lips
24

HOLINESS THE IDEAL
of Cromwell's Ironsides, and in Scot
land's struggle for crown and covenant.
The ideals of the two 'Covenants are
practically the same: that of the Old
Testament is holiness, "Ye shall be
holy; for I, Jehovah, your God am
holy" (Lev. 19:2); that of Jesus, per
fection, "Ye, therefore, shall be per
fect, as your heavenly Father is per
fect" (Matt. 5:48). There is doubt
less a slight difference in the ethical
contents of these conceptions, but in
essence they are the same — likeness to
God. The reason for the difference is
patent to any one who will pause to
reflect: the Old Testament covers mil
lenniums of ethical and religious devel
opment, the New Testament less than
a century. As Dr. George Adam Smith ob
serves: "The Old Testament lies not
under but behind the New. It is not
the quarry of the excavator or archae
ologist. It is the Hinterland of the
25

THE NEW LATENT IN THE OLD
New; part of the same continent of
truth, without whose ampler areas and
wider watersheds the rivers, which grew
to their fulness in the new dispensation,
could never have gained one tenth of
their volume or their influence. " Or, as
Augustine has suggested:
"The New is in the Old contained,
The Old is in the New retained ;
The New is in the Old concealed,
The Old is in the New revealed ;
The New is in the Old enfolded,
The Old is in the New wifolded. "
Or, as Prof. Sanday puts it, "The New
Testament is latent in the Old, the Old
Testament is patent in the New."
Accordingly, in our study of the Old
Testament, we should never lose sight
of its goal in the New ; and in our
study of the new Testament, we should
never lose sight of its origin in the Old.
The actual necessity of studying the
New Testament in the light of the Old
becomes more obvious when we recall
26

THE OLD QUOTED IN THE NEW
that there are not fewer than five hun
dred direct quotations from the Old
Testament in the New. New Testa
ment saints found it possible to adopt
Old Testament utterances as their own.
Religious fervor speaks the same lan
guage. Not only the "Benedictus" of
Zacharias (Luke 1 : 68-79), which is so
steeped in Old Testament language
that some one has called it "an anthol
ogy from the Psalms and Prophets,"
but the Beatitudes also, the conclusion
to the Lord's Prayer, the Hosannas of
the multitude on the occasion of our
Lord's triumphant entry into Jerusalem,
and even the Master's gracious invita
tion, "Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest, ' ' are full of Old Testament rem
iniscences and richly colored with Old
Testament thought and phraseology.
Likewise some of the most precious
phrases in the New Testament, such as
"the living God," "the great Shepherd
27

MESSIANIC HOPES
of the sheep," and "the blood of the
everlasting covenant," are but echoes of
the language of the Old Testament.
And what is incidentally very remark
able, the most frequently quoted psalm
of the collection, after the 23d, is a
psalm of imprecation, the 69th. But
no doctrine or teaching of Judaism is
taken over into Christianity without,
of course, being transfigured in the pro
cess. But still more binding of the two
covenants in one are the Messianic
hopes of the Old Testament, which
have found their fulfilment in the New,
and which prepared the Hebrew mind
for the coming of the Christ. With
out exception the Hebrew prophets
were optimists. To one and all of
them Israel's golden age lay in the fu
ture, not, as with so many other nations,
in the past. Many of them predicted
definitely the advent of One who would
bring spiritual salvation to Israel. Jer-
28

INTERPRETERS OF CHRIST
emiah even predicted that a new Cov
enant would some day supersede the
Old (Jer. 31 : 31-34). Obviously,
therefore, the Old Testament is the in
terpreter of the New, and will continue
to be so long as Jesus Christ is regarded
as the fulfilment of Messianic hope.
And accordingly, "it is necessary," as
Professor Sanday observes, "to go back
to the old Hebraic foundations of our
religion and lay them again more deep
ly and firmly, or rather see how they
have been laid by the Great Architect,
who is so much wiser and mightier
than we."

29

Ill
Paul's Attitude to the Old Tes
tament
AT the outset we must distinguish
sharply between Paul's attitude
to the Law and his attitude
to law in general, or what might be
called the legalistic spirit. In Gal.
5 : 18 he declares, "If ye are led by the
Spirit ye are not under the law," by
which he means not the Mosaic law
in a technical sense, but law in general,
or the spirit of legalism, as opposed to
the spirit of love. To Paul the law
meant a spirit of service, or a quid pro
quo; the gospel, a spirit of sonship;
and these were incompatible. Duty,
to Paul, under the gospel was no long
er a foreign constraint but an inner
native impulse. His attitude to the
law as a discipline was that of an
30

THE MORAL LAW PERMANENT
orthodox Jew, but his attitude to the
spirit of legalism as a condition of sal
vation was antinomian. The law was
"our tutor to bring us unto Christ"
(Gal. 2 : 20). The law was something
' 'added' ' (Gal. 3 :19). Promise preceded
law. In order to be justified the sin
ner must go behind the law. Paul,
therefore, appeals from law to prom
ise — from Moses to Abraham (Gal.
3:16). The law which failed to justify
was not the moral but ritual law; for
example, circumcision. The moral law
was permanent and possessed perennial
value because it pointed to sin and
sharpened conscience. "When the
commandments came," Paul says, "sin
sprang into life and I died" (Rom.
7 : 9). The moral law, like the gospel,
lifts the sinner above legal conditions
and the enticing indulgences of the
flesh and realizes its ideal in mutual
service; in short, love is the fulfilment
of the law (Gal. 5: 14; Rom. 13:8-10).
31

TIMOTHY'S EDUCATION
Paul was not only a friend of the
law and thoroughly conversant with
the law himself, he presupposed a re
markable acquaintance with the Old
Testament among the members of his
churches. Timothy especially he com
mends because "from a babe" he had
known the sacred writings "which are
able to make one wise unto salvation
through faith which is in Jesus Christ. ' '
And the same sacred writings he most
cordially recommended to his readers
when he said: "Every Scripture in
spired of God is also profitable for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction which is in righteousness,
that the man of God may be complete,
furnished completely unto every good
work" (2 Tim. 3:15-17).
The Epistle to the Hebrews is even
more minute in its comparison of the
Old and New Covenants. Yet in it al
so God's revelation is declared to be
continuous. Its very first sentence an-
32

THE LAW COULD NOT ATONE
nounces that God had been speaking
to men from the beginning : "God hav
ing of old time spoken unto the fathers
in the prophets by divers portions and
in divers manners, hath at the end of
these days spoken unto us in his Son"
(Hebs. 1 : 1, 2). Still to the unknown
author of this epistle, as to Paul, the
law could not atone for sin. Repeat
ed sacrifices are of no avail, because in
spite of them the conscience remains
uncleansed. The most elaborate sac
erdotal apparatus effected nothing be
yond ceremonial purification, because
mere animal sacrifices could not remove
sin (Hebs. 10:4). The law even tends
to blur things, for by its vast machinery
and ritual, the original plan of God is
obscured. Only Christ can forgive sin.
Judaism at best is but an afterthought.
In comparison with Christianity it has
not even the merit of priority which
seems to belong to it. It is something
second-hand. Christianity is the origi-
33

THE GREAT HIGH PRIEST
nal religion of heaven, which "has cast
its shadow," as Peake expresses it, "in
to this world in the form of Judaism"
(Hebs. 8 : 2). The offering of Christ
carries us back into the region of eter
nity. Jesus, the Son of God, was
Creator, in that He furnished the plan
with His sacrifice of Himself as the
central fact of man's redemption.
Accordingly, He entered, as High
Priest, into the heavenly sanctuary —
the true locus of realities — and there
by offering once for all His own
blood, became the Author of eternal
redemption. Chronologically, Chris
tianity succeeded Judaism, but in real
ity Christ is the Lamb which was slain
before the foundation of the world.
This in brief is the position of the
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
But we must not suppose that he re
garded the New Covenant as some
thing quite apart from the Old, or as
making in itself a fresh start. On the
34

THE SPIRITUAL BACKGROUND
contrary, the New Covenant was the
spiritual background of the Mosaic
Covenant. Chronologically, to us, the
spiritual was subsequent to the sensuous,
but in the plan of God the spiritual pre
ceded the sensuous. The ritual thus
became the husk, so to speak, to pre
serve the true faith — to protect the
ethical core from injury ; it was tem
porary, the kernel existed from all eter
nity. Both were from God.
But the final test of the abiding value
of the Old Testament must be the
revelation of Jesus Christ. Whatever
accords with the teaching of Jesus
Christ will be abiding. We come then
to the question, What was the attitude
of Christ to the Old Testament ?

35

IV
Christ's Attitude to the Old
Testament
OF one thing we may be certain ;
The Old Testament was Christ's
Bible, and He was well conver
sant with it. On more than one occa
sion in His disputes with the Pharisees,
He showed intimate acquaintance with
the Old Testament, and drew heavily
upon it (Matt. 21 : 16). Like the Jew
ish Rabbis of His time, He emphasized
the divinity of the law and found
spiritual life in it (John 5 : 39). He
accepted absolutely every precept of the
Old Testament. Even the lex talionis
of Exodus 21 : 24, "an eye for an eye,
and a tooth for a tooth, ' ' He left stand
ing as a basis, so to speak, of His own
higher mandate, which Matthew Ar-
36

"I CAME TO FULFIL"
nold has very appropriately called ' 'the
secret of Jesus," passivity under trial
(Matt. 5:38-41). Jesus abrogated no
thing. As some one has well said,
"No one save Jesus had the right to
lay the law aside, and He made it im
mortal. ' '
He explicitly stated, "I came not to
destroy the law or the prophets, but
to fulfil"; adding that "not one jot or
tittle" should pass away from the law
till all things be accomplished (Matt.
5 : 17, 18). Jesus, too, spoke as a law
giver: "But I say unto you." How
ever, when He proclaimed the Golden
Rule, "All things therefore whatsoever
ye would that men should do unto you,
even so do ye also unto them, ' ' He very
carefully added, "for this is the law
and the prophets" (Matt. 7:12). In
terms of this Rule, Jesus would ob
viously have us interpret all Old Testa
ment commands. He, Himself, invari
ably upheld the validity of the written
37

TOO MUCH EXEGESIS
law. What He attacked was the Rab
binic interpretations placed upon it by
human commentators and unscrupulous
casuists. Rules destroy principles.
Through the mechanical rules of ex
egesis the Rabbis missed the spirit of
the Old Testament. It is as unjust to
accuse the Old Testament of being
responsible for the Pharisaic restrictions
of Christ's times, as to charge Chris
tianity with the corruptions of the
Roman Church at the time of the Ref
ormation. Jesus nowhere gives the shadow of a
hint that any statement of the Old
Testament is inaccurate or needed re
vision or correction. On the contrary,
He set His imprimatur on the Old Tes
tament in its entirety. Jesus, like His
people, is also distinguished for His
originality, but His originality consists
not so much in the new truths which He
enunciated, as in the discoveries of new
meaning which He placed on the law and
38

ON THESE TWO COMMANDMENTS
prophecy. Jesus penetrated deep down
below the isolated precepts of the Old
Testament and unified as well as trans
formed them. The Old Testament
was not simply the foundation of His
teaching, not merely the historical pre
requisite of His claims, but a constituent
element of His message, the background
of His thought, even part and parcel of
His conception of religion.
When He was asked, for example,
which was the greatest commandment,
He cited Deut. 6:5 and Lev. 19:18,
not merely as individual precepts but
as indicating the spirit that gives value
to all obedience; and He emphatically
affirmed that upon these two command
ments — love to God and love to men —
hang suspended the whole law and the
prophets. Thus Jesus soared away far
above the petty disputes of the schools
about the relative worth of isolated
precepts, teaching that the sum of
man's duty and the germ of all good-

THE REALIZED IDEAL •
ness spring from supreme and unlimited
love to God. In this way He shifted
the center of men's thoughts from con
duct to character, from deeds to affec
tions. The Old Testament sages had
said, "As a man thinketh in his heart so
is he." Jesus said, as a man loves so
is he. Duties are unified in love.
Christ, moreover, actually fulfilled
the law and the prophets. He not
only recognized Himself as the pre
dicted Messiah, He also realized in
Himself the ideal of the prophets.
"And beginning from Moses and from
all the prophets, he interpreted to them
[the two disciples on the way to
Emmaus] in all the Scriptures the
things concerning himself" (Luke 24:
27). The seers of old had dreamed of
an empire which should rule provinces ;
Jesus established a kingdom which
controls passion and exalts love. His
contemporaries indeed were disappoint
ed in Him because He did not establish
40

LAW INCARNATE
a temporal kingdom. Nevertheless He
realized the spiritual ideals of their
illustrious ancestors just as the flower
fulfils the purpose of the bud. "The
bud passes away as the flower comes,
but it is not destroyed, because it
has fulfilled its destiny." (Barton,
The Boots of Christian Teaching as
Found in the Old Testament, 269. ) In
this sense Jesus became the incarnation
of the law as well as the incarnation of
love.

41

V
Our Attitude to the Old Testa
ment
CHRIST'S attitude to the Old
Testament must determine ours.
He is God, He is Truth. Fol
lowing Christ's example, some of the
greatest thinkers the race has ever pro
duced, as Gladstone, have recognized
that in the Old Testament we have in
herited from the Jewish Church a very
precious legacy. Bishop Westcott,
one of the very greatest New Testa
ment scholars of modern times, freely
acknowledges that the Old Testament
is an essential part of the Christian's
Bible. The fact that it teaches the
simplest elements of religion, and be
gins with the utmost rudiments of
truth, such as are contained in Genesis,
42

THE BASE OF THE PYRAMID
does not destroy its abiding value. We
do not discard the alphabet when we
begin to read. We do not remove the
base of a pyramid in order to study its
apex. Through the Old Testament the an
cient world still speaks most eloquently.
Human nature is a constant quantity.
The types described in the Old Testa
ment are typical and practical. Con
sequently we dare assert that the Old
Testament is destined, because of its
inherent merit, to continue a fresh
fountain of living truth, which will ever
help to invigorate and restore, to purify
and refine, to ennoble and enrich the
moral and spiritual well-being of man
kind. Who can possibly estimate the mor
al influence of the Old Testament upon
the race ! So long as sin exists in the
world there will continue to be need of
the Ten Commandments. So long as
greed and selfishness are found among
43

IMMORTAL POEMS
men there will be the necessity of Law.
Law is not annulled by love ; rather
love carries on its work in a law-
governed sphere. Even the hygienic
laws of Leviticus are not yet obsolete,
neither will they be obsolete so long as
statisticians tell us that the average age
of Gentile life is 27 years while that
of Jewish is 37. So long as men are
tried and tested, the book of Job will
be imperishable ; so long as old age
overtakes the sons of men, the book of
Ecclesiastes will furnish timely instruc
tion to boys and girls to remember also
their Creator in the days of their youth;
so long as the race knows sorrow and
sighing the Shepherd Psalm will re
main immortal ; "for though it came
from an Oriental heart and is expressed
in terms of Oriental experience, it deals
with the deep things of life with a sim
plicity so noble that it touches the
heart of every generation. " (McFadyen,
The City with Foundations, 201.)
44

FROM THE JEWISH HYMN-BOOK
"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not
want. He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul :
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness
for his own name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil ; for thou art with me ;
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the
presence of mine enemies :
Thou anointest my head with oil.
My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life ;
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever. ' '
As one has reverently said, "To live
up to the highest expressions of the old
Jewish hymn-book is to be a pure
Christian." 45

REALITY IN WORSHIP
The chief enemy of the Old Testa
ment is ignorance of it. For more than
two millenniums the Old Testament
has circulated among men, as Dr. Bar
ton expresses it, "revealing the heart of
man to himself, holding before human
eyes the law of God, awakening the
conscience, unfolding the story of the
Father's forgiveness in Christ, and
forming by its lofty teaching the char
acters of the saints." And it is des
tined, I firmly believe, to live on so
long as true religion holds sway over
human hearts ; for, though we may put
more knowledge into our worship than
did the ancient Hebrews, we shall hard
ly be able to put in more reality.
The one supreme immortal element
in the Old Testament is faith in the on
ly true and living God. The one out
standing portrait which it paints is that
of the one ineffable Face, before which
stands the soul in joyful converse and
immortal faith. The Old Testament
46

A ROLL-CALL OF HEROES
postulates FAITH as the great central
fact of religion :
Faith that believes in an original, personal
Creator, Faith that worships (like Abel),
Faith that abstracts us from the world and
enables us to walk in communion and fellow
ship with God (as Enoch did),
Faith that inspires us to save others (like
Noah), Faith that drives us on foreign missions
(like Abram),
Faith that makes the impossible, possible
(as in the case of Sarah),
Faith that reconciles God's commands (as
Abraham's did when he was bidden to offer in
sacrifice Isaac, the son of covenant promise),
Faith that chooses between temporary suf
fering with God's people and the temporary
enjoyment of sin (as Moses did),
Faith that places religion above patriotism
(as Rahab did),
Faith that suffers reproach, imprisonment
and even martyrdom.
In short, the faith that makes heroes,
47

THE WORKS OF FAITH
gives substance to things hoped for and
reality to things as yet not seen ; which
was illustrated in the many Old Testa
ment worthies, who "through faith
subdued kingdoms, wrought righteous
ness, obtained promises, stopped the
mouths of lions, quenched the power
of fire, escaped the edge of the sword,
from weakness were made strong,
waxed mighty in war, turned to flight
armies of aliens" (Hebs. 11:33, 34).
Such faith in concrete form we find
inimitably depicted in countless Old
Testament characters. Surely the faith
of such men will live on and on for
ever ; and not only their biographies,
but their writings will continue to be
recognized by the Christian Church as
indeed "profitable for teaching, for re
proof, for correction, for instruction
which is in righteousness." So that
with Emerson, we may well affirm —
"The word unto the prophets spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken. ' '

THE SOIL OF CHRISTIANITY
In conclusion, therefore, the Old
Testament must be regarded as an es
sential part of the Word of God. It
has intrinsic value of its own ; it is the
interpreter of the New Testament ;
Paul recognized its eternal validity ;
Jesus Christ magnified it and made it
honorable ; and every thorough Bible
student recognizes its intrinsic worth.
To the Christian it has perennial val
ue, because it supplies the soil out of
which Christianity has sprung. Such
an one will consequently read it carefully
and ponder it ; he will likewise assimi
late it, live it and obey it ; for unless
he obey it, it will not yield itself to
him. There is an esoteric element in
the Old Testament ; spiritual things are
spiritually discerned. He will read it
devotionally as well as study it critical
ly. Even the New Testament special
ist must be conversant with it. In
fact he cannot understand the New
Testament without it.
49

THE TEST OF LIFE
Moreover, in order to appreciate the
full message of the Old Testament, it
must be studied in the closet, and its
promises tested in the actual intercourse
of daily life. The greatest care must
be taken to catch its spiritual signifi
cance. Such an exercise demands time,
but the rewards are worthy of the ef
fort. Of no other book is the motto
of the old Schoolman more appropriate :
"We should prepare a man for the
world by taking him out of the world
for a while, to be influenced, not by
the spirit of the age, but by the spirit
of the ages. " The spirit of the ages is
the Spirit of God, and the spirit of
the Old Testament is none other than
the spirit of the Gospel. Truth is con
tinuous. "Divine revelation is all of
one piece."

50