Value of the Old Testament Scriptures.
By George R. Bristor
RECENT years have witnessed strong and persevering attacks upon the purity and binding authority of the Old Testament Scriptures. From without the church the cry has come that Moses' writings contain much contrary to known facts of science; that many of the characters of the Old Testament display grossness, immorality, and vice; that most of its teachings as to God portray a cruel, vindictive monster, in perfect opposition to the loving and pleading God of the New Testament; and that, therefore, because of such contradictoriness, all the thoughtful of earth must either discard both Testaments as a fraud upon human credence, or abandon the Old Testament as contradictory to, and inconsistent with, the spirit of the New Testament. Timid hearts within the church, fearful lest they might be driven to the former evil, have called upon their brethren to accept the latter. These Christians were ready to accept the books from Genesis to Malachi as historic records of the Jewish nation, worthy of preservation with the histories of other races and other times; but admitted that the morality it portrayed was that of a darker age than that in the days of Christ, and that the old moral code was therefore abrogated and the entire record made comparatively valueless and unauthoritative to us by the revelations of the gospel. But both to the skeptic from without, and the fearful from within, the church, let the decisive words be repeated: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable." However these two Testaments differ in their form of recording, yet the thoughtful student is forced to the conclusion that they teach the same facts and principles. Boil down to its quintessence the entire New Testament, divesting it of all collateral matters, all arguments and conclusions, all pleadings and warnings, and it enunciates but three clear facts: The sinfulness and weakness of man, coupled with the purity and power of God; the naturalness and the futility of all efforts for human self-preservation and salvation; the possibility and actuality of a redemption in and by God himself. Boil down the old record, divesting it of all collaterals, and we find only the same three facts. True, differences in clothing of these facts are evident in the two records. True, one looks to Calvary through the eyes of prophecy, while the other looks backward to an already offered sacrifice. Yet these are differences only of view or of presentation, not discord or differences of underlying facts. The same differences—if separate lines of approach be differences—exist in the apostolic writings, and in an especial degree in the evangelists' descriptions of Christ. The roots and buds of all the fragrant flowers blooming on the New Testament pages may be clearly discerned in the Old Testament. Daybreak proves the existence of a sun equally as well as midday; the latter, only more clearly than the former, shows its nature and power. So in their purport these two volumes do not differ. It is true the Old Testament tells how Abraham lied, how Solomon lusted, how David sinned. Let it also be acknowledged, however, that all such evils in the chosen of God, occurred when, morally and intellectually, men walked in the twilight, and the evils decreased as the day dawned. And let it also be recognized that, although recorded in the record, they never were approved of by God. But as a father, for the guidance of the younger child, tells to him the sin of the older one and the punishment it necessarily brought, so in the Bible God tells his younger children, that they may be warned, of the sins of his former servants and the consequent punishment. The very existence of the Old Testament in our day, as a part of the accepted Bible, should also be admitted as a strong argument for its harmony with the thoughts of the New. Through long ages the fires have continually burned about the book; the strokes upon it of the sharpened sword have been many and strong; the acids of criticism have been poured upon it even unto this day. No voice of its defenders has been equal to its own argument. It survives. Had the Old Testament taught a different theology from the New, had the writings, as through Moses received, lacked harmony with those through John, the flames of persecution would long since have burned the green withes which bind them together as one book; the sword long ago would have succeeded in separating the discordant parts; the acids of criticism would ere this have shown the jointure of welding together the gold and the base metal. And yet out of the smoke and heat of battles have come, alike unharmed, Moses and Matthew, Isaiah and John. But there is an unanswerable argument in the claim made by Jesus the Christ, that he inspired Moses and Isaiah with the same inspiration which stirred the minds, and started the pens, of John and Luke and Mark. He, unhesitatingly, faces the records of the law, and announces they are as true as the declarations of the gospel. He insists that his authorship must be recognized in the former as in the latter. That being conceded, the consistency of the two revelations is beyond reasonable cavil. Christ speaking in the flesh can but speak in harmony with the Christ speaking through his prophets. It is "Jesus Christ the same yesterday and to-day and forever." Whenever he speaks, through whatever media, or in person, he must be self-harmonious, self-consistent, or his whole claim of divinity abandoned. So the Old Testament, at least to Christians, as regards the principles it annunciates, ranks as equal in value with the writings of the New Testament. But what is the value of the old records viewed from a scientific standpoint? In his gospel, John goes farther than the annunciation of Christ as the inspirer alike of the teachers of the old and new dispensations. He declares that not only "the Word was with God, and the Word was God," but adds, "By him were all things made." To emphasize this creative work of Christ, John afterward adds: "By him were all things made, and without him was not any thing made that was made." So this same Christ who taught as a man, and who spoke through the prophets, made also every flower that blooms, every tree that waves its arms in the storm, every star that sparkles. When the world was made, and "hung on nothing," he did it. It was his voice that, amid the darkness, said, "Let there be light, and there was light." It was the skill of his hand that piled up the strata of the earth, that buried the coal under the hills, and the gold in the hidden veins. This is the New Testament claim. With the sad remembrance of Calvary about him, John traces Christ, not only through the prophets and entire Old Testament, but recognizes him as the Master-builder and Workman of creation. So, despite the objections made, there lies the world created by Christ. In its very strata he must teach consistently with the words of his mouth. The rocks and the flowers, the birds and the trees, the sun and the cloud, the Genesis by Moses and the Psalmody of David, the moans of Jeremiah and the waning voice of Malachi, if we but understood them all aright, teach but the one story that is recorded in the Gospels. To do otherwise would be an inconsistency in the Creator and Author. So, when compared with the New Testament, the Old Testament is found teaching the same principles, and of the same value that the opening bud is to the opened flower, or the day-dawn to midday. As compared with contradictory science, the Old Testament must be understood as requiring only the same faith in its dicta as is necessary for the acceptance of scientific claims. And the value of the Old Testament, as compared with that of assailing science, must be in proportion as the word of the eternal God is of value when contradicted by the word of human wisdom.—George R. Bristor, D. D., in Sunday School Times.