As the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches, certain great truths which are
generally regarded as distinctively Christian were common to the divine
religion of Judaism upon which Christianity is based

As the Epistle to the Hebrews
teaches, certain great truths which are generally regarded as distinctively
Christian were common to the divine religion of Judaism upon which Christianity
is based. And as the opening words of Romans remind us, "The gospel of God
concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord" was "promised afore"
in Hebrew prophecy. The most distinctive truth of the Christian revelation is
grace enthroned. That truth was lost in the interval that elapsed between the
close of the New Testament canon and the era of the patristic theologians. That
He to whom the prerogative of judgment had been committed is now sitting upon
the throne of God in grace, and that, as a consequence, all judicial and
punitive action against human sin is in abeyance—deferred until the day of
grace is over and the day of judgment dawns—is a truth that will be sought for
in vain in the standard theology of Christendom.

 

"My gospel," the
Apostle Paul calls it, for it was through him that this truth was revealed—not
the gospel "promised afore," but "the preaching of Christ
according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the
world began."

 

Even among men, the wise and
strong keep silence when they have said all they wish to say. And this gospel
of grace is the supreme revelation of divine mercy to the world; the silence of
heaven will remain unbroken until the Lord Jesus passes from the throne of
grace to the throne of judgment.

 

It is not that the divine moral
government of the world is in abeyance. Still less is it that spiritual
miracles have ceased. For in our day the gospel has achieved triumphs in
heathendom which transcend anything recorded in the New Testament. Infidelity
is thus confronted by miracles of a kind that give far more certain proof of
the presence and power of God than any miracle in the natural sphere could
offer— hearts so entirely changed, and lives so thoroughly transformed, that
fierce, brutal, and degraded savages have become humble, pure-living, and
gracious.

 

What may be called evidential
miracles have no place in this
"Christian dispensation." In the ages before Christ came, men may
well have craved tokens of the action of a personal God. But in the ministry
and death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, God has so plainly manifested
not only His power, but His goodness and love toward man, that to grant
evidential miracles now would be an acknowledgment that questions which have
been for ever settled are still open.

 

No one may limit what God will
do in response to individual faith. But we may confidently assert that, in view
of His supreme revelation in Christ, God will yield nothing to the petulant
demands of unbelief. And that revelation supplies the key to the dual mystery
of a silent heaven and the trials of the life of faith on earth.

 

 

I
desire in Scripture not to explain but to receive, and in communicating, to say
what is there, not to add thoughts. This may seem a slight distinction, but the
effect of the difference will soon be seen in the formation of systems, instead
of actual profiting upon divine instruction.