Christ the Subject of the Bible.
By William Walton Clark
The subject of the Scriptures is Christ. All scripture is about him and his coming. The voice of the Old Testament is, “He is coming;” that of the gospels, “He has come;” of the epistles and Revelation, “He will come again.” The Lord himself says: “Search the Scriptures, for they are they which testify of me.” It is said that in the Swedish language there is no word which can be translated “search” so they have used another word, “ransack,” and this is what we ought to do, ransack the Scriptures, for “they are they which testify of” Christ. We should begin and continue all study with this thought in mind. As every picture has its “point of sight,” so each book in the Bible has Christ as its center and its object. The disciples thought they knew the Scriptures; but they did not see Jesus in them, for the Lord rebuked them for their failure in this very particular, saying: “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.” “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Here we have a Bible-reading conducted by the Master, on the road to Emmaus, and this was his subject: “Christ in the Old Testament.” Again he says: “All things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me.” These are the three great divisions of the Old Testament, and we can imagine the Great Teacher opening the eyes of his followers and declaring, “In the volume of the Book it is written of me.” No wonder their hearts burned within them as he talked with them by the way. The study of Christ in the Old Testament is exceedingly profitable. In Genesis he is described as the seed of the woman; in Exodus as the “passover lamb,” in Leviticus, the high priest; in Numbers, the smitten rock and the uplifted serpent, and in Deuteronomy, the person of Moses. All of these typify and set forth the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Psalms also are full of references to him. All the prophets, either in type or in prediction, “testified beforehand of his sufferings and the glory that should follow.” The gospels record his life, death, resurrection and ascension; the Acts, the establishment of his church; the epistles, the development of his doctrines; and the Apocalypse, the revelation of his coming glory. The great work of the Holy Spirit is to testify of Christ. “He shall glorify me.” “He shall take of mine and show them unto you.” In fact the whole Bible may be expressed by two words, Christ, Jesus; Christ in the Old Testament, Jesus in the New. There is a very beautiful hymn in our collection, which we like to hear the children sing, “Every Lesson Points to Thee:”— While we look within thy Word,
Show thy face to us, O Lord,
In these pages may we see
Every lesson points to thee.
Symbol, precept, Judgment, law,
Melting love and holy awe.
Teach us, Lord, whate’er it be,
Every lesson points to thee.
—Rev. William Walton Clark.