OLD TESTAMENT (I. Chri.st a-s ftilfilment of).t— 1. The ideals of life found in the OT by Jesus. — Jesus" conception of the life of the OT is that of the life wMch is proper to the children of God (Mt 5-7). It is the normal relation of fellowship between (iod and His children, oliedience to God and to His messengers (7-^). The life for which the prophets lalx)iued, that which they representetl .as the ideal, was adopted by Him as the ideal, and their labours were continued by Him. He claime<l no less an authority to carry on the development of the ideal than the greatest of the prophets had exercised. As the propliet taught (Is 50'*) that those lo}-al to Jehovali should obey His representa- I tive, so did Jesus when He combrnetl such sayings a-s ' He that doeth t!ie will of my Father' (Mt 7"-'), ' and ' He that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them " (v.^, Lk 6*=-*).
Tlie OT ideal of religious life was the earlier stage of a religious development which He came to continue. It needed no essential change to become that which He wished to establish. It was characterized by an imjierative demand for a right- eousness which consisted in a thoroughgoing oljedi- ence to Got!, and this was jiLst what Jesus demanded and exemplified. Moreover, while Jesus taught that tlie ideal of life was to be found in tlie OT, He was far from teaching that all that was in the OT contributerl to tliis ideal. Allien He had occasion. He expressly taught that even the law- giver, Moses, permitted practices which belonged
* In later Greek, however, T/«-r(wV = trustworthy, and the meaning raay thus be ' genuine,' ' unadulterated,' ' pure.' t On the OT of Jesus see following article.
to a lower plane of living than that of the principles contaiuetl w the OT. There was; so much in the human heart that was hostile to these principles, that for a time a standard of life lower than these ideals was i>ermitted (Mt 19*).
Jesus, like the prophets, was certain that the religious life for which He laboured was to Ijecome a universal religion. His claim of i)ermanence for His utterances (Mt 24»^, Mk 13*', Lk 21^) was also a claim that His teachings had tlie changeless quality of the word of God under the Old Covenant (Is 40* oo"^ ", cf. 51**. and of Goils law under the New (Mt 5'*, Lk 16"). Words uttered by Him when the Greeks sought to see Him ( Jn PP-), were an assumption to Himself personally of the uni- versal significance for human history which the prophets (Is 11^, Hab 2'-') had claimed for the re- ligion of Jehovah. This claim to a unique place in human history and identification of Himself with those lofty utterances of the OT, show that in the mind of Jesus the religious life of the OT had a unique place among the religions of tlie world. This is equally seen in His declaration to the Samaritan woman (Jn 4-), ' Ye worsliip that which ye know not : we worsliip that which we know : for salvation is of the Jews."
Jesus addressed His heirers constantly as having the true religion, as nominally recognizing the true and li\-ing God, and as needing to do no more than live up to their own religion. He saw in the OT a universal ideal of society, and the prin- ciples for a programme of its esta\)lishinent. The ideal society was one in which the lost should have lieen saved ; into which the called and chosen should have l>een gathered ; in which the repent- ant should have found pardon, the distressed and scattered should have found comfort : the members of which should love God supremely, and each other as themselves, and should be humble, meek, and pure in heart. During the progress of the establishment of this society, those who belongetl to it would be called tii>on to be merciful, to hunger and tliirst after righteousness, to he iieacemakers, to endure ]>ersecution for righteousness' sake pa- tiently, to love enemies, to devote themselves to God without pretence and with singleness of mind ; and yet to live lives of radiant goodness, to bring forth an abundant fraitage of l)eneficence for the sake of Jesus and in His name, to observe the duties which grow out of the natural relations of life, to lose their lives for His sake and the gospels, to seek first this ideal society and Gods righteousness, to go to Jesus and talie His yoke upon themselves, and look itpon a life of lowliest ministry- as the life of highest honour.
In these conceptions Jesus Avas developing the OT ideal, as will be seen later. An important element in developing the ideal was a maturing of the conception of God. Since Jesus was an ' OT saint' (A. B. Davidson, Th-uAoqy of the Old Testa- ment, 520^, the OT Go<l was His God. Moses had been able to add new elements of meaning to Israel's conception of God in connexion with the name ' Jehovah." Jesus made a further advance by using the OT word ' Father ' as applied to G<m1. making it the dominant name in His own thought, and reading into this dominant conception of Fatherhood all the OT elements of the thought of Got!. Jesus so enlarged the conception of Go<l that He practically gave a new revelaticm as the Kasis of the new development of religious life which He was pro- moting. This enlargement came in part from re- placing the name ' Jehovah ' by the name ' Father.' partly by the a<.suniption on flis part of a unique Sonship into which none of His disciples might enter fMt 11'^). partly by the new place given to the .'Spirit which wa-S no more than adumbrated in the OT.