For The Love Of God !!!

For The Love Of God

WHAT THE OLD TESTAMENT TEACHES 

"From the time at which this great and far-reaching promise or gospel was given to ABRAHAM, the universal scope of the divine Redemption is insisted on with growing emphasis, even in those Hebrew Scriptures, which we too often assume to be animated only by a local and national spirit." - Salvator Mundi. 

"The whole history of the world is the uninterrupted carrying through of a divine plan of salvation, the primary object of which is His people: in and with them however also the whole of humanity." - Delitzsch on Ps. xxxiii. 11. 

From the Church I turn next to the Old Testament. There we shall find abundant, perhaps to many readers, unexpected confirmation of the larger hope, though I can merely attempt to give an outline of its teaching. True, in the Old Testament, the promises are, it may be said, mainly temporal; but still we have unmistakable evidence of a plan of mercy revealed in its pages, and destined to embrace all men. Nor need this interpretation of the older volume of God's word rest on mere conjecture: let me call as a witness, no less a person than the Apostle S. PETER. The Apostle in one of the very earliest of his addresses, Acts iii. 21, takes occasion to explain the real purpose of God in Jesus Christ There is to come, finally, a time of universal restoration, "restitution of all things." He adds the significant words that God has promised this "by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began ;" and, therefore, we who teach this hope are but following in the steps of all God's holy prophets. Thus S. PETER would have us go to the Old Testament, and weave, as it were, its varied predictions into one concordant whole, till they, with one voice, proclaim the "restitution of all things." 

Of the Gospel of Creation I have already spoken: here it is enough to note that, in the divine act which stamps upon man the Image and Likeness of God, we have the Gospel in germ. Thus the opening chapters of Genesis "give to us the largest views of the loving sovereignty of God; and of the divine origin, and destiny of mankind." - WESTCOTT, Rev, of the Father. In this great fact, that mankind comes from God, and returns unto (or into) God - Rom. xi. 36, and in the divine plan to insure this return, lies the center of unity of the Bible, - the point to which its "many parts" and "many modes" (Heb. i. 1) converge. 

Thus we see the true meaning of the Jewish economy- "Its work was for humanity, the idea of Judaism is seen not in the covenant from Sinai, but in the covenant with ABRAHAM." - ib. 

*Here I may note that even those who take extreme views of future punishment seem to agree in the belief that ADAM and Eve found mercy. But, if so, it may well be asked - shall they who were the authors of the Fall, and all its woe, escape; shall they who, created upright, fall - yet find mercy at the last, while so many involuntary inheritors of a fallen nature are doomed? 

I have not space to consider minutely the promises of blessing to all men contained in the Old Testament, though they can be traced almost everywhere. At the very moment of the Fall is given a promise, that the serpent's head shall be bruised, intimating a complete overthrow. Two points are very significant here. The promise is not of the serpent's wounding only, but of such a wound as involves his destruction; and next the promise is conveyed in close connection with a terrible judgment; it is part of the sentence, it is embedded, so to speak, in it. Passing on, we find that with the promise to ABRAHAM was blended an intimation of blessing to the race of man. And this intimation of a worldwide blessing, as has been often pointed out, grows more frequent as the stream of Revelation flows on. We find that in the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, are traces, clear and distinct, of universal blessing. Thus of the teaching of the Law a fundamental part rested on the institution of the "firstfruits" and the "firstborn." 

Elsewhere in this volume has been pointed out the extreme significance of this as bearing on the larger hope, and as fulfilled in Jesus Christ. As the "firstfruits" pledge the whole harvest, and the "firstborn" the whole family, so are the elect people, i.e., God's "firstborn" ("Israel is my son, my firstborn"), a pledge that all are God's, that all are destined to share His blessing (to this the whole story of the Jewish race, when rightly viewed, bears witness; as "first-fruits" they are the channels of blessing to all mankind). Hence it is that we have the repeated promises to ABRAHAM, that "in his seed should all the families of the earth be blessed." Thus the Jewish patriarch becomes in the apostle's striking phrase, "heir of the world," and no less. 

This principle, by which the elect become a means of blessing to all the rest, is strikingly affirmed in the Jewish law. A sheaf of the "firstfruits" was to be presented to the Lord as pledging and consecrating the whole harvest. (Lev. xxiii. 10 and 11.) All the "firstborn" of the herds and flocks were the Lord's (Deut. xv. 19), as a pledge that all were His. So were the "firstborn" of their sons. (Ex. xxii. 29.) If now we turn to the New Testament, we learn the essential bearing of all this on Christ's kingdom. First the Apostle assures us that if the "firstfruits" be holy, the lump is also holy. (Rom. xi. i6.) Next he asserts that not Israel only, but in a higher sense Christ is the "firstfruits." (x Cor. xv. 23.) And the context implies that Christ conveys, actually imparts, life to all as did ADAM death to all. And as Israel was the "firstborn" son (Ex. iv. 22), so in a sense far higher is Christ the "firstborn" of every creature (Col. 1. 15-20), (the head of every man, 1 Cor. xi. 3.) Here, too, the context involves the reconciliation through the "first born," Christ, of every creature to God. We have thus a double "firstfruits," i.e., Christ, the true "firstfruits," and His people, "a kind of firstfruits." (James i. 18.) Christ the "firstborn" (Col. i. 18), and again His people (His elect) the "Church of the firstborn." (Heb. xii. 23) Now it is very striking to find all this exactly prefigured in the Law; for it speaks of a double firstfruits; one which was offered at the Passover, and on the very day on which Christ rose, on "the morrow after the Sabbath" (Lev. xxiii. 10,11); the other also distinctly called "firstfruits," (though distinguished by a separate name) which was offered fifty days later at Pentecost. * (Lev. xxiii. 17.) Thus does even the Law contain intimations of universal blessing to accrue to all men. 

Reference -:

Christ Triumphant

or 

Universalism Asserted 

as the Hope of the Gospel on the Authority 

of Reason, the Fathers, and Holy Scripture 

by 

Thomas Allin 

Reprint of the Ninth Edition 

Published in cooperation with the Saviour of All Fellowship 

by the Concordant Publishing Concern 

Christ Triumphant by Thomas Allin Ebook PDF

http://www.tentmaker.org/books/ChristTriumphant.htm