God in the Old Testament.
By Samuel Allen Harlow
THE study of the Old Testament ought to have for us the very deepest interest. It brings before us in vivid, brilliant colors, scenes which have peculiar and impressive characteristics. In very many of the scenes that glow upon the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures, we see the immediate and personal connection of God with the strange and solemn events that make up the life of a great nation. In the Old Testament, God draws aside the curtains of Heaven, and stands boldly, vividly, majestically, and impressively revealed to the eyes of men. We see, as it were, the hand uplifted with the sword of punishment, or the arm of mercy stretched forth in deliverance. Many to-day are losing, in a large measure, the idea of a personal God. He is receding into a vague, shadowy, almost unthinkable, being clothed round about in robes of inscrutable mystery, a shadow against the background of human life, an apparition without substance, rising before the thought of men as some colossal enigma which human thought cannot solve or explain. This is not the God of the Old Testament. On the great background of the Old Testament, God stands clothed in majesty, his voice rolling in tones of love and warning over the hearts of men. The Old Testament reveals God to us as a tremendous and vivid personality; as a God hating wickedness and loving righteousness. The God of the Hebrew Scriptures is a being who loves, with an infinite and divine love, truth and righteousness, and who hates with the intensity of a being who is holy, all iniquity. And it is this personality of God, which is so vividly revealed to us in the Old Testament, that imparts to that book its peculiar charm and interest. We feel silenced and awed in the presence of the existence and personality of such a God. The history of Israel becomes in our sight profoundly interesting. It becomes a wonderfully real history. The scenes which the Old Testament present to us for our study and profit are all aglow with the vividness, picturesqueness, and brilliancy of great events wherein we see, as though portrayed in massive outlines, and in splendor and richness and strength of coloring, the tumultuous warring, disloyal, and sinning life of nations and individuals. We see, in these narratives in the Old Testament, the flashing armor of hosts tramping to battle, the gleam of swords and spears on crimson fields and mountains, the stately and splendid procession of kings and armies, scenes of war and peace, sorrow and joy, glorious reward and terrible punishment. And from amid these scenes, so intensely graphic in their nature, there rises in majesty, limitless power, mercy, and holiness, Jehovah of hosts, the God of Heaven and earth, the rewarder of those who love and diligently seek him, and the punisher of those who disobey him. If there is one single truth which these striking scenes impress upon our minds, it is the great and solemn truth that there is a personal God in the Heavens, and that his eyelids try the children of men. Behind the operation of the laws of this physical universe, behind all the sad, terrible, and glorious deeds of men, there is One who holds the lightnings in his hand, and who leadeth the children of men as a shepherd leadeth his flock. The Old Testament gives us, in its weird, solemn, and beautiful scenes, no such being as The Great Unknown, or The Great First Cause; but it gives us for our reverence, our worship, our obedience, our love, and our fear too, a heavenly Father, who bows his head over his children in infinite love, mercy, and pity. Is there not enough taught us in the Old Testament to dissuade us from doing wrong? Is there not sufficient warning in the examples of evil and godless men and women to show us the doom, the penalty, the punishment, of turning away from God? Is there not sufficient illustration in the examples of noble and godly characters to foretell to us the bright and rich reward of those who love and serve God? Cannot the Old Testament, then, become radiant and instructive with lessons that shall teach us the way of righteousness and peace and eternal life? May the Holy Spirit enlighten our minds so that we shall study this grand old book in the right spirit!—Rev. Samuel Allen Harlow, in S. S. Times.