Old and New Dispensations United in Christ

IT has often been a matter for contemplation to the thoughtful mind the salvation offered to man by Jesus Christ was so long in preparation, why so many centuries must have passed before the Saviour could appear. God has not rested in his work of redeeming love. The Old Testament indeed, stern and severe, but it was a glorious preparation for the coming of the Redeemer.

The infancy of fallen humanity was rude and barbarous through the blackest darkness the rays of truth had to cleave their only a rigorous discipline of law could mortify the pride of the Jew, and lead him heart-broken and trembling to the promised Redeemer. And when we turn to heathendom a still more mournful sight greets us. Having "changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things," they were given up to Uncleanness, bound by it, hand and foot.

And for these many centuries, among the heathens as well as among God's chosen people the Jews, there were dim longings, and blind gropings, for a Deliverer the fingers of the soul had never, even in the deepest degradation, ceased to reach forth, though trembling, towards the DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. And at last, after the decay of Judaism, and after the rolling away of Paganism, was heard the voice of one crying in the wilderness-" Prepare ye the way of the Lord!" For four hundred years no prophetic voice had broken the almost agonizing silence.

Malachi had been the last to Utter of words warning and of comfort, and the world has waited almost hopelessly. But all things were now ready, the FULlNE5S OF THE TIME was come; and this rough man, with coat of camel's hair, and leathern girdle, and feeding on rudest desert fare, was the forerunner of Him for whom the world had waited.

The Messiah came to turn men from their idols to serve the living God; to break down the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile, and to declare the universal brotherhood of man and fatherhood of God. Thus, were the ancient prophecies fulfilled; thus, were the longings of heathendom satisfied.

"The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy," says the Apostle; meaning that all the rays of light, streaming from prophetic sources the enlightening of the moral darkness of the race, converges to and is centered in Jesus Christ. He is the bond of union between the past and the future, the elder dispensation and the younger.

The ancient Temple and its magnificence of ritual have passed away; thus the scepter departed from Judah for Shiloh was come.

The Old and the New Dispensations United In CHRIST

FROM THE CAPTIVITY TO THE COMPLETION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON

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