The Law and the Prophets
By C. L. Taylor
THE Scriptures beautifully explain themselves. They require no “private interpretation.” Take as an illustration the truth regarding “the law and the prophets.” “The law and the prophets were until John,” says Luke. “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John,” says Matthew. But Matthew also adds, “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” Summed up, what is the result?—Simply this: The law and the prophets prophesied, or foretold, and foreshadowed, the great truths of the gospel, until the time of John the Baptist, when that servant of God actually introduced to the world “the Lamb of God.” Then type met antitype. Then prophesying and foreshadowing gave place to the fullness of light and life as manifested in the Lord Jesus. But the law and the prophets did not cease to be. In them is the Golden Rule. To do to others as we would have them do to us, is the law and the prophets. Jesus, the very personification of the Golden Rule of love, is only a revelation and demonstration of the virtues of the law and the prophets. Beautiful harmony! To love God with all the heart and soul and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves, is but to fulfill the great end of the law and the prophets. “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matt. 22:40. No wonder, therefore, that Jesus came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. They are everlasting gospel truth. They are the kindness and love of God. They are all goodness, as expressed in the life of Jesus. And he who knows most of our Lord Jesus Christ, knows most of that beauty of character which, from earliest times, God set before the world in “the law and the prophets.” C. L. TAYLOR.