CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.
CHRIST placed a very high estimate on the Old Testament, as a revelation from God, as a divine rule of life, as a prophecy of His own person and redemptive work. There is a disposition now in many quarters to belittle the authority of the ancient books, and to make them more elementary than they are. This disposition finds no warrant in Jesus Christ. In His parable of the rich man and Lazarus, when the sufferer pleads with Abraham that his brother may be warned by the return of Lazarus, and thus prevented from coming into the place of torment, Abraham refuses the request as needless. He says, with great emphasis: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if one rise from the dead.” Put beside this Paul’s eulogy of these Scriptures to Timothy: “From a babe thou hast known the Sacred Writings [of the Old Testament] which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Jesus Christ.” The closing thought here suggests the relation of the Old Testament to Christ. The ancient books proclaim the one redemption through the Messiah, fulfilled by His coming, and declared by the writings of the New Testament. “Every [Old Testament] Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.” Long before these words were written, Christ had said to the Jews: “Ye search the [Old Testament] Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life, and these are they which bear witness of Me.” This is the uniform tenor of Christ’s teaching concerning the Old Testament, throughout the Sermon on the Mount and everywhere else. This is the one example for us. It is often said that Christ can not be found in the Old Testament, except He first be wrongly put there through strained metaphors and other fraudulent teachings. But He found Himself there, plainly on the surface, and according to unforced and inevitable teaching. As cited above: “They are they that testify of Me.” And after His resurrection, in those wonderful hours, unlike any other hours in the history of the world, at Emmaus and Jerusalem, “Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” “He said unto them, All things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms, concerning Me.” Perhaps, if we can occupy our right relation to the Old Testament, and not disparage it, our hearts, too, may burn within us while He talks with us by the way, and opens to us the Scriptures.