(Continued from page 297.)

We may now consider Acts 26:6, where Paul, making his defense before king Agrippa, tells him he is being judged for the hope of God's promise to the fathers – a hope that the twelve tribes, fervently serving day and night, hoped to attain. It was concerning this hope the Jews were accusing him. The apostle here speaks of a hope declared in the Old Testament-a hope that, in his enlightened understanding, involved the resurrection of the dead. That Paul firmly believed that the resurrection of the fathers and the heirs of their faith is the teaching of Old Testament Scriptures, is made manifest by the question he puts to Agrippa and his August associates. He says:"Why is it judged incredible with you if God raises the dead ? "

We have only to compare verse 6 with chaps. 23:6 ; 24:14, 15, 21; 26 :22, 23, 27, to see that Paul views the Pharisees as guiltily resisting what they acknowledged the Old Testament teaches, and the Sadducees as nullifying altogether its doctrine of a future life, while he makes a strong appeal to Agrippa against opposing himself to the assured voice of the prophets.

I turn now to i Pet. 1:3,4. We shall see later that Abraham and his heirs (the true children of faith) were taught to look for an inheritance in heaven. They had thus before them a hope of life and incorruptibility (a state of permanent immortality) in which their possessions and blessings would be incorruptible, undeniable and unfading, in contrast to the land in which they were dwelling as strangers and pilgrims. Now this hope was connected with the promise of a Seed-the Messiah. But when the Messiah was rejected by the nation, and crucified, it was apparently the death of faith's hope. It looked as if the promise was a mockery. But God raised the Crucified One, and through His resurrection the hope of faith was revived. The children of faith were begotten again to their living hope. Peter clearly implies that the Old Testament encouraged the children of faith to expect a future state of immortality.

He indicates the same in chap. 3:13 of his second epistle, where, speaking of the dissolution of the present heavens and earth, he says, "Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth." Where is the promise of a new heaven and new earth in the Old Testament ? We may perhaps say, It was in God's mind when He promised the woman's Seed. We may consider it to have been in His mind when He taught Abraham to look beyond and above the earth for an abiding home. We may believe that it was in His mind when He gave believers the promise that they should enter into His rest (Ps. 95 :it ; Heb. 4 :i). But new heavens and a new earth are specifically promised in Isaiah 65:17 and 66:22, and Peter clearly refers to this promise in the above-mentioned passage. But a permanent heavens and earth-new heavens and a new earth -abiding before God as the eternal dwelling-place of righteousness, certainly implies that its privileged inhabitants will be in a state of abiding immortality. Men could not be mortal there.

Hebrews 6:1,2 may now engage our attention. It should be observed that, beginning with chap. 5:12, the apostle is contrasting the Mosaic with the Christian economy-the old legal dispensation with the present dispensation of grace. To him, the old Jewish revelations are the beginning of the oracles of God, while in Christianity we have their completion. This distinction is of great importance. The Old Testament is not the full revelation of God ; it is the beginning of it. It is in the New Testament that God's revelation is completed. (See Col. i:25:"To fulfil the word of God" should be read, " To complete, or fill out, the word of God.") Another important matter to be noticed is that the apostle, in chap. 5:12, speaks of the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God. And what are these elements ? Do we not find them in chap. 6:i, 2?Are they not the underlying principles on which is built the whole structure of the oracles of God ?The Hebrew believers, whom the apostle here addresses, were inclined at least to go back to the Old Testament order of things, though they had professed to receive the newer communications from God. To return to what they had been familiar with was but too natural to them-to rites and ceremonies, to the figures and shadows connected with the beginning of the word of Christ; but to return to this (after the proclamation of the "so great salvation," the announcement of which was begun by the Lord, and continued by those who heard Him, God Himself attesting them as His witnesses, chap. 2:3, 4) was a very serious matter indeed, as the apostle testifies in chap. 6:4-6. In this newer revelation, this unfolding of the
Christian doctrine of Christ, a new foundation had been laid on which a new structure had been built. To renounce the new revelation (Christianity) and return to the old (Judaism) could only be considered as fatal apostasy. It was returning to a dispensation that God had displaced-an economy that He had put aside by introducing a new one of an entirely different character.

The apostle now plainly states what the old foundation was-the underlying principles upon which the old Mosaic order of things was built. Six principles of truth underlay the Mosaic economy. The apostle gives them in three pairs.

The first pair is " Repentance from dead works, and Faith in God." The apostle is practically saying that the primary object of the Mosaic system is not to teach men the way of life, but the utter worthlessness of works which are not the fruit of life ; consequently, it showed man's dependence upon God for life. While promising life on the condition of perfect obedience, the law was necessarily unable to give life, and man's works under it were "dead works." For man to have life- true life, eternal life-the life in which he knows and enjoys God, God must come in sovereign grace. This is the great underlying lesson of the law.

But this necessitated that the law should be a system of rites, ceremonies, statutes and judgments to be observed-an established ritual. Moses therefore set up a system of Washings ("baptisms ") which sanctified the flesh but outwardly- washings which, while typical of that washing in which the conscience is once for all purged, did not give a cleansed or purged conscience. In connection with this there was also a teaching about the " Laying on of hands," the meaning of which was that the offerer was identified with the victim by whose blood he was outwardly and temporarily purified. Hence we see that another lesson or fundamental principle of the law is the need of a washing for a real cleansing. The law was especially constructed to emphasize that need.

The third pair of principles on which the Mosaic dispensation was based is a "Resurrection of the dead" and "Eternal Judgment." The view of death in the law of Moses is that it is a part of God's governmental penalty on sin – a temporary judgment; that the dead will therefore be raised, and that eternal judgment is the final doom to which man is exposed. While the Mosaic economy proceeds on that basis, it does not manifest the salvation of which it shows man is in need.

Now these six principles are the very first elements – the first principles of the oracles of God – the beginning oi the word (the doctrine or teaching) as to Christ. They are the foundation of the Mosaic system. The apostle here exhorts the Hebrew believers to leave the order of things which was built upon this foundation, and to go on to the fully developed word of Christ.

It is not necessary here to develop what this full "word of Christ " is, nor what is the foundation on which the whole Christian system is built; but if the fundamentals of the Mosaic economy are what the apostle tells us they are, we may expect to find in the Old Testament Scriptures more or less distinct references to man's final future state.

Before turning to Heb. n, let us note two passages (2 Tim. 1:9; Tit. i:2) which are of Special value in connection with what we are considering. The last of these particularly speaks of the "hope of eternal life" as promised by God "before the times of the ages" (Greek). The evident allusion is to Gen. 3:15, where we find in God's announcement of His judgment upon the Serpent, a revelation of an unconquerable Seed of the woman. While God is directly addressing the Serpent, He speaks in the presence and hearing of our fallen first parents. Surely the declaration of a Conqueror-Man was for faith. Hence it was a promise of life-of imperishable life, which would deliver from death, the result of sin. God gave this promise, this hope, before He drove man out of the garden to begin the ages of his history as an exile from God.

That this promise of life, of incorruptibility, was God's eternal purpose, we cannot doubt, for the first of the passages above cited speaks of it as "given to us in Christ before the times of the ages." The purpose and grace which were eternally in God's mind and heart were specifically given to us (to faith) in the announcement of the coming obedient Conqueror-the woman's Seed.

This promise of life incorruptible was a ray of light for faith, and faith walked in the light thus shining upon its path. There was need of the "life and immortality" (incorruptibility) being fully illuminated. No doubt the men of faith longed for this full illumination, and heartily welcomed every fresh revelation which God gave them all along the ages. But the life and incorruptibility which the saints of old embraced as God's promise, was made fully manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, the Man who has annulled death; and this life and incorruptibility, fully manifested, is now shining forth through the gospel (2 Tim. i :10).

With these two passages before us we may turn to the Old Testament in the confidence that we shall find eternal life to some extent unfolded there; that incorruptibility for man is there taught, though not in the fulness of New Testament revelation. It is there as a promise, it is there as a hope, it is there as light on the path of faith-as solace, cheer and comfort to those who in faithful walk before God and testimony for Him incur the enmity of those living in earthly things. C. Crain

(To be continued.)