The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 5

Dut in this divcrBity, so important llnd so precio119, we o.re led nlso to re- cog11isl' 11nother point of the extremest vAlue for II right estimate of the Old Teetn• ment revelntione-nemcly, ite fr11gmentarinees; or prog"Mi'IJfflUI. It wae given to u~ ,roXv,.,p.-:.,-" in many parts." The revelation wae not given all at once ; it wne not pl'rf<'ct &nd fin&! ; but God revealed himself to man part by part; he lifted t~e Yeil £?Id by foln. It is grievous to recall how rnAny a blood-stained page of l11at.ory rmght b11ve been redeemed from its ngony nnd deeolntion if m~n had only remembered th11t the l11w of the Old Teet.a.ment was ae yet an imperfect law and the mornlit~- of the Old Testament a not yet fully enlightened morality. When the aang-ninnry maintainers of shibboleths defended their outrages by the injunctions of the Pentatcuch; when the treacherous and fofamous aseaeeinatione of kings by a Jacques Clernl'nt or a Rnvaillac were justified by the examples of Ehud and Jnel; when the Crusaders thought that they did God service by wading bridle-deep in the blood of '' infidels,'' because they could refer to the exterminating wars of the Book of Judges; when the examples of Samuel and Elijah were quoted to sanction the hideous cruel- ties of the Inquisition; when the ruinous institutions of polygamy nnd slavery were "upported by the records of the early patriarchs; when texts extravagantly strained were made the chief buttress of immoral despotism ; when thousands of poor inno- cent women were burned as wit.ches on the authority of a text in Leviticus; when atrocious crimes like the massacre of St. Bartholomew were hailed 'by Popes with acclamation, and paralleled by the zeal for God of olden heroes ; when many another eITor of darkness W81 defended by " the devil quoting Scripture for his pnrpose,"-ail these follies and iniquities (of which many find their pale reflex and faint analogy even in the present day) could never have occurred if men had studied the Bible in the light ,of the tnitbs which we have just been considering. And those truths were quite d:ietiractly enunciated not only by St. Paul, the greatest and wisest of the Apostles,1 bat by OUT blessed Lord himself. In mo.ny distinct.passages-not.to d9,•ell on the spirit and the allusions of many more-he pointed out that.the revelation of God was progressive; tlui.t even the moral conceptions of the great saints and heroes of the Old Testament were bat as the starlight compared to the' glory of the risen dily. 2 At the very period when the religious authorities of the Ja.we were more and more degrading into a dead fetish the letter pf their law, and that in its most unessential particulars, our Lord drew the most marked . contrast between that wi1ich had been " said to them of old time " and that which he .said to them. theri; 3 At a period when the distinction between clean and unclean meats ;was becoining the main badge of the Jew, and an impassable barrier between the Jew and the Gentile, be drew the distinction between real and unreal defilement, and "tbis •he said, . . . making all meats clean."' When the washings of Levitio scrupulosity were looked on, not only as a pious and conscientious, but as an absolutely binding development of the lawe of ceremonial uncleanness, he openly neglect.ed them, even at the table of a Pharisee. 6 Though the Levitical ordinances came under the direct sanction of inspired authority, he gave his direct approval to the terms in which the greet prophets bad treated them-not only as essentially transitory, and already in part obsolete, but as having alw&Y8 been of an importance absolutely infinitesimal oompared with the weightier matters of the Law.' He declined to give -any personal sanction to the Mosaic law about the stoning of the adulteress.' He said in express tem1e 1 As in Gal iv. 9 and pauim. 3 Matt. v. 21~43 ; Luke ix. 55. Matt. v. 21, &c.', where the true rendering is "to," not Hby," them of_~ld time, ' :Mark viL 19 (in the true rendering). 6 Matt. ~Y:· 1 ; Mark vu. 2. • :Matt. xxiii. 23. ' John vm. 11.  fmNEllAJ, IN'I'ltoDUU'fION TO THE OU! TESTAMENT. vii