of his death that men were saved before, as well as after his advent. The Apostle Paul says (Rom. iii. 25), that Christ was set forth as a propitiation for the remission of sins, not only ei- tw pw Kaipw but also of the sins committed before the present time, during the forbearance of God. And in Heb. ix. 15, it is still more explicitly asserted that He died for the forgiveness of sin under the first covenant. He was, therefore, as said in Rev. xiii. 8, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. This is at least the common and most natural interpretation of that passage.
Such a revelation of the Messiah was undoubtedly made in the Old Testament as to turn the eyes of the whole Jewish nation in hope and faith. What the two disciples on the way to Emmaus said, " We trusted it had been He who should have redeemed Israel," reveals what was the general expectation and desire of the people. Paul repeatedly speaks of the Messiah as the hope of Israel. The promise of redemption through Christ, he declared to be the great object of the people's hope. When arraigned before the tribunals of the Jews, and before Agrippa, he uniformly de- clared that in preaching Christ and the resurrection, he had not departed from the religion of the fathers, but adhered to it, while his enemies had deserted it. " Now I stand, and am judged," he says, "for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers." (Acts xxvi. 6.) Again he said to the Jews in Rome, x^cts xxviii. 20, " For the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain." See, also, xxiii. 6 ; xxiv. 15. In Eph. i. 12, he designates the Jews as ot TrpoTjXTTtKOTes ev TU) Xpto-Tw, those who hoped in the Messiah before his advent. In Acts xiii. 7, he says the rulers of the Jews rejected Christ because they knew not " the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day," which they " fulfilled in condemning Him." In Him was " the promise which was made unto the fathers," he tells us (verses 32, 33), of which he says, " God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that He hath raised up (or brought into view) Jesus," the long-expected Saviour. It is needless to dwell upon this point, because the doctrine of a personal Messiah who was to redeem the people of God, not only pervades the Old Testament, but is everywhere in the New Testament de- clared to be the great promise which is fulfilled in the advent and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Faith the Condition of Salvation from the Beginning. As the same promise was made to those who lived before the advent which is now made to us in the gospel, as the same Redeemer
372 PART lU. Ch. n. — the COVENANT OF GRACE.
was revealed to them who is presented as the object of faith to us, it of necessity follows that the condition, or terms of salvation, was the same then as now. It was not mere faith or trust in God, or simply piety, which was required, but faith in the promised Re- deemer, or faith in the promise of redemption through the Messiah.
This is plain not only from the considerations just mentioned, but also further, (1.) From the fact that the Apostle teaches that faith, not works, was before as well as after Christ the condition of salva- tion. This, in his Epistle to the Romans, he not only asserts, but proves. He argues that from the nature of the case the justification of sinners by works is a contradiction. If sinners, they are under condemnation for their works, and therefore cannot be justified by them. Moreover he proves that the Old Testament everywhere speaks of gratuitous forgiveness and acceptance of men with God ; but if gratuitous, it cannot be meritorious. He further argues from the case of Abraham, who, according to the express declaration of the Scriptures, was justified by faith ; and he quotes from the old prophets the great principle, true then as now, that the "just shall live by faith." (2.) In the second place, he proves that the faith intended was faith in a promise and not merely general piety or confidence toward God. Abraham, he says, "staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God ; and being fully persuaded that what He had prom- ised He was able also to perform." (Rom. iv. 20, 21.) (3.) The Apostle proves that the specific promise which was the object of the faith of the patriarch was the promise of redemption through Christ. That promise they were required to believe ; and that the true people of God did believe. The mass of the people mistook tiie nature of the redemption promised ; but even in their case it was the promise of i-edemption which was the object of their faith. Those taught by the Spirit knew that it was a redemption from the guilt and power of sin and from the consequent alienation from God. In Gal. iii. 14, the Apostle therefore says that the blessing promised to Abraham has come upon the Gentiles. That blessing, therefore, was that which through the gospel is now offered to all men.
Not only, therefore, from these explicit declarations tiiat faith in the promised Redeemer was required from the beginning, but from the admitted fact that the Old Testament is full of the doctrine of redemption by the Messiah, it follows that those who received the religion of the Old Testament received that doctrine, and exercised faith in the promise of God concerning his Son. The Epistle to the Hebrews is designed in great part to show that the whole of the Old