Nowhere in Holy Writ do we find a dispensational limit upon the atoning work of Christ. From the garden of Eden, through successive ages, down to the consummation of Time, the precious blood of the Lamb was, and is, and shall be efficacious in cleansing from all sin. The dissenting view, indeed, may seem to be in harmony with Scripture, yet in following it one is led by a half-truth, opening the way for imagination.

The Old Testament saint, it is alleged, had only the promise of sins forgiven, and not actually atoned for until the death of Christ had become an accomplished fact; these saints at death, it is said, could not possibly come into the immediate presence of a most holy God! And so those departed souls were to be held "captive" in sheol or hades, not of course, with the lost, but in what is termed an "Old Testament paradise," not "the paradise of God."

A further review of this teaching would be of no profit were it not that so many dear servants of Jesus Christ, who otherwise are true to the faith, seem to uphold a doctrine which tends to disparage rather than to magnify the power of the Cross. One marvels that such a belief could engage the attention of any careful Bible student, but such is the course of conjecture when it reaches out beyond the written Word.

"New birth," the entrance of life eternal into the soul, is also an Old Testament truth. Our Lord did not introduce His enquirer, Nicodemus, to something new (John 3:1-10):"Art thou a teacher of Israel, and knowest not these things?" David had cried to God in his penitence, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow… Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, 0 God, and renew a right spirit within me" (Ps. 51:7-10).

David received full assurance of sins forgiven and of a clean heart through the power of the Cross. Still, if David's confidence be taken simply as the language of faith, and not a present, personal experience, we have Isaiah 6:1-7 to assure us of a then very present experience:"Lo, this hath touched thy lips:and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." Also in chapter 61:10-"My soul shall be joyful in my God:for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness."

There was, then, an absolute blotting out of sins centuries before the death of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; for the evidence of the entire Old Testament Scriptures is sufficient to justify the belief that saints of former dispensations were granted full salvation from their sins, were indeed begotten of God, were actually , the sons of God, and in possession of life eternal, fully prepared to dwell in His most holy presence. It is cited, however, that saints in former dispensations are never spoken of as "sons of God," but that the term when used refers to angels only.

Yet from Gal. 4:1 we learn that saints under the old covenant were sons in fact, although treated as children under age, as minors:"Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all." The failure to recognize the force of Paul's argument as to why those children of God in former ages were not given the title of "sons" as yet, may have led to this unscriptural thought regarding them.
It is evident from that "honor roll" in Hebrews 11, that souls marked with such a record of faith were fully prepared through the atoning sacrifice of Christ to dwell in the very presence of the One whom they had loved more than life itself. Verily, the cleansing power of the blood could reach back to the days of Abel. If Adam's sins, for example, stood against him, in reality, until atonement had been made at the cross of Calvary, how could our Saviour "His own self bear our sins in His own body on the tree" committed long afterwards?

God is not limited by years, neither is He baffled by conditions nor circumstances in working out His eternal purposes; for He is the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. With HIM, the past and the future are as the present; and most beautifully expressive are the "lines:

"O mystery of mysteries!
Of life and death the tree;
Center of two eternities,
Which look, with rapt, adoring eyes,
Onward and back to Thee-
O Christ of Christ, where all His pain
And death is our eternal gain."

H. Cowell