The Organic Unity of the Old Testament.
Its predictions are not isolated, but features of one great prophetic picture; its ritual and institutions parts of one great system; its history, not loosely connected events, but an organic development tending toward a definite end. Viewed in its innermost substance, the history of the Old Testament is not different from its typical institutions, nor yet these two from its predictions. The idea, underlying all, is God's gracious manifestation in the world—the kingdom of God; the meaning of all—the establishment of this kingdom upon earth. That gracious purpose was, so to speak, individualized, and the kingdom actually established in the Messiah. Both the fundamental and the final relationship in view was that of God toward man, and of man toward God: the former was expressed by the word Father; the latter by that of Servant, or rather the combination of the two ideas, "Son-Servant." This was already implied in the so-called Protevangel; and in this sense also the words of Jesus hold true, "Before Abraham came into being, I am." —Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus.