The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 7

1 hat "In Yctcrc Teet11ment.o Novum latet; in Novo TeBtamonto Vctus pntet," The fact that, from the days of Origen onw&t'ds, allegory arid typology have been ell:&g• geritt.ed to a most artificial extent, and that many events and allullione nnd cuetome have been made prophetic of Christ in which nothing of prophecy was lntended,1 must not blind us to the fact that the Old Thstament ie full of Christ; for the very heart end essence of the Old Dispensation, as ite features arc exhibited In the writings of historians, lawgivers, and prophets, was the great and unquenchable Messianic hope. In the Old Testament Christ is prefigured; in the New he is revealed. In his teaching we see in all their fulnees those constant elements which all religion strives more and more clearly to express-the holiness and love of God, the dignity end brotherhood of man. And so he stands at the centre of all history as the fulfil- ment of all the yearnings of the pe.et., the justification of all the hopes of the future, Apart from him all the deepest elements of the Old Testament become unintelligible. The Law is but the slave which leads us to his school.• He is the bruiser of the serpent's head in Genesis, 8 and the Lamb as it had been slain in the midst of the throne in Revelation ; 4 he is the Pasahal Lamb of Moses ; 6 the true star and sceptre of Balaam's vision;• the promised Son of David; 1 Isaiah's rod o! the stem of Jesse; a him whose testimony is the spirit of propheoy, 8 and of whom bear all the prophets witness, as many as have spoken from Samuel and those that follow after.10 The due comprehension of this vast hope, and the power of unfolding it, will be one of the highest results which can reward the study of the preacher who desires to fulfil the duty of a wise scribe by drawing from his treasures things old as well as new.11 , By Htudying the Bible in this spirit we shall make the New Testament an inspired Targum uf the Old; the Old Testament will become to us as the New, and the New as the Old. 11. But, to turn to the second point which I mentioned as one of primary import- :mce, every preacher is certain to be led into constant errors who makes a habit of using texts without a faithful study of the context from which they are taken. Thousands of readers attach an entirely erroneous mea.ning to isolated expressions from forgetting that their true bearing can often only be understood in c,onnection with the train of thought to which they belong. The sacred writers .never contem- plated the splitting up of their writings into these ml!ltitudinous and often arbitrary di\·isions. Those divisions are mere conveniences for purposes of reference, and.,owe their origin to the exigencies of the concordance.Ill No one who has not looked into the subject can be at all 'lware of the multitudes of "texts" which are habitually employed in 11enses which they never originally bore; or of the absolute recklessness with which they are constantly misapplied, even by professed divines. Someti111-es this mieUBo is so far harmless that the truth into the service of which the text is im- pressed finds abandant 11upport from other passages ; but even in that case the habit springs up of the preacher using the words of prophet or evangelist, not in their proper sense, but ae a sort of mask through which more authoritatively to utter thoughts which are not those of the sacred writer, but are his own. 13 I cannot .more <lirectly illUBtrate this fact than by showing that even the very texts which are 1 The writings of the Father&-notably of Origen, of St. Hilary of Poictiers, and even or St. Jerome and St. Augustine--are full of the most strained and untenable allegories. 2 Gal iii 21. 3 Gen. iii 15. ' Rev. v. 6. • Exod. xii • Numb. x.xiv. 17. 7 Mark L 48, &c.