tion was intended, and His control of all the.
events which affected its fortunes and develop- ment; for what God had done or was doing in judgment or mercy to punish or to save, was the content of the message and mission of the leaders or teachers. It was not through nature that God discovered Himself; it was not by brooding over their own inner life that God’s spokesmen found the word of the Lord. They read the signs of the times in the rise and fall of empires; in famine, pestilence, and invasion ; in the wrongs and miseries of the poor, and the tyranny and luxury of the rich ; in moral and social conditions as well as in political circumstances : and the signs of the times were to them a Divine language. Accordingly, the history must be included in the revelation, in the measure in which God was seen to be acting, or was heard to be speaking by the inspired persons in all events and experiences. The external history afforded the occasion for the internal revelation, but did not limit its range, as inspired men learned and taught more about God than was immediately suggested by facts. It would be to ignore the most prominent feature of this history not to lay peal stress on the redemptive character of it. God again and yet again showed Himself to be a Saviour in delivering His people from the evils which they had brought upon themselves by their transgression. The Exodus from Egypt and the Return from Babylon, to mention only the most momentous instances, were both decisive factors in the process of God’s revelation. __ :
2. Limitation of God’s action.—It is by so view- ing the history of Revelation in a nation that we escape some difficulties to which we expose our- selves, if we consider only the inspiration of in- dividuals. It has often been asked, why should we restrict inspiration to Hebrew lawgiver, or judge, priest, or prophet, and refuse it to Greek sage or Roman statesman? Without entangling ourselves in any abstract psychological discussion about the subjective process of inspiration, we can
REVELATION 395
answer the question by pointing out first of all, that, whatever true or holy utterance regarding God or the spiritual order may have fallen from the lips of Greek sage or Roman statesman, it was not addressed to a society, conscious of itself as discharging a Divine function in the world, as constituted by a Divine covenant and regulated by a Divine law; did not connect itself immedi- ately with prior Divine utterances, which were alike the condition of its intelligibility and the basis of its authority; did not mark a stage in the progressive development of the knowledge of God, and of a moral and religious life corresponding thereto. We may most gladly admit that every good and perfect gift is from above, from the Father of lights, and that all truth concerning God is of God; yet we must maintain that such isolated, and for the most part impotent, utter- ances cannot have for us the same significance as utterances which find their due place and play their needful part in the expression of an ever more adequate and influential knowledge of God in a progressive national history. The distinct- ively religious character of this history is usu- ally recognized, but is variously explained. The Hebrew people has been credited with a genius for religion, an innate tendency towards mono- theism, a passion for righteousness. It has accord- ingly been maintained that we do not need to recognize in this progress any but the ordinary historical factors. Just as the Greeks had the genius of arts and letters, and the Romans the genius of law, so the Hebrews had the genius of religion. But the very phrase in which the func- tion of this people in the world-economy is ex- pressed, forces us to recognize what is claimed for itself by the literature which this genius has pro- duced. Ifthe argument developed in the previous section is valid, religion implies a reciprocal rela- tion of God and man. The consciousness of the world and the self cannot constitute, although they may mediate, the consciousness of God. Nay, those tend to pervert or even exclude this, unless restrained and corrected by an intensified re- ligious life, which is an increased responsiveness to the presence and action of God. Hence a genius for religion implies an activity of God which a genius for art and letters, or for law, does not. The character and the result of re- ligious genius implies a revelation of God by Him- self as no other genius does. But besides this consideration, two other evidences of the Divine action in Hebrew history may be indicated. On the one hand, we do not find any of the peoples who had the closest racial affinity to the Hebrews display any innate tendency towards monotheism, or any passion for righteousness; and, on the other, the history of the nation itself shows with what difficulty and delay it learned the lessons of faith and duty, which God was giving to it both by His dealings with it in events, and by His teaching of it by His messengers. ay é
3. Fulfilment of the OT revelation in Jesus Christ. —This revelation has its issue and consummation in Jesus Christ. As religion seeks to bring man into such reciprocal relations with God that there may be a community of thought, feeling, and life, in His God-manhood religion had its ideal realized. As the purpose of revelation is to communicate to man such a knowledge of God as shall be adequate to answer the questions of his mind regarding God, to satisfy the longings of his heart for God, to determine his actions by the will of God, in the consciousness of Jesus, who knew the Father as He was known of the Father, in the testimony of Jesus, who being in the bosom of the Father has declared Him, revelation reached its goal. But we must add, inasmuch as man’s relation to