Chapter XXXV: Section I: Historical Preparation For Redemption

Since God had from eternity determined to redeem mankind, the history of the race from the time of the Fall to the coming of Christ was providentially arranged to prepare the way for this redemption. The preparation was two-fold:

I. Negative Preparation,—in the history of the heathen world.

This showed (1) the true nature of sin, and the depth of spiritual ignorance and of moral depravity to which the race, left to itself, must fall; and (2) the powerlessness of human nature to preserve or regain an adequate knowledge of God, or to deliver itself from sin by philosophy or art.

Why could not Eve have been the mother of the chosen seed, as she
doubtless at the first supposed that she was? (_Gen. 4:1_—“_and
she conceived, and bare Cain_ [_i. e._, “gotten”, or “acquired”],
_and said, I have gotten a man, even Jehovah_”). Why was not the
cross set up at the gates of Eden? Scripture intimates that a
preparation was needful (_Gal 4:4_—“_but when the fulness of the
time came, God hath sent forth his Son_”). Of the two agencies
made use of, we have called heathenism the negative preparation.
But it was not wholly negative; it was partly positive also.
Justin Martyr spoke of a Λόγος σπερματικός among the heathen.
Clement of Alexandria called Plato a Μωσῆς ἀττικίζων—a
Greek-speaking Moses. Notice the priestly attitude of Pythagoras,
Socrates, Plato, Pindar, Sophocles. The Bible recognizes Job,
Balaam, Melchisedek, as instances of priesthood, or divine
communication, outside the bounds of the chosen people. Heathen
religions either were not religions, or God had a part in them.
Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, were at least reformers, raised up
in God’s providence. _Gal 4:3_ classes Judaism with the
“_rudiments of the world_,” and _Rom. 5:20_ tells us that “_the
law came in beside_,” as a force coöperating with other human
factors, primitive revelation, sin, _etc._

The positive preparation in heathenism receives greater attention
when we conceive of Christ as the immanent God, revealing himself
in conscience and in history. This was the real meaning of Justin
Martyr, Apol. 1:46; 2:10, 13—“The whole race of men partook of the
Logos, and those who lived according to reason (λόγου), were
Christians, even though they were accounted atheists. Such among
the Greeks were Socrates and Heracleitus, and those who resembled
them.... Christ was known in part even to Socrates.... The
teachings of Plato are not alien to those of Christ, though not in
all respects similar. For all the writers of antiquity were able
to have a dim vision of realities by means of the indwelling seed
of the implanted Word (λόγου).” Justin Martyr claimed inspiration
for Socrates. Tertullian spoke of Socrates as “pæne
noster”—“almost one of us.” Paul speaks of the Cretans as having:
“_a prophet of their own_” (_Tit. 1:12_)—probably Epimenides (596
B. C.) whom Plato calls a θεῖος ἀνήρ—“a man of God,” and whom
Cicero couples with Bacis and the Erythræan Sibyl. Clement of
Alexandria, Stromata, 1:19; 6:5—“The same God who furnished both
the covenants was the giver of the Greek philosophy to the Greeks,
by which the Almighty is glorified among the Greeks.” Augustine:
“Plato made me know the true God; Jesus Christ showed me the way
to him.”

Bruce, Apologetics, 207—“God gave to the Gentiles at least the
starlight of religious knowledge. The Jews were elected for the
sake of the Gentiles. There was some light even for pagans, though
heathenism on the whole was a failure. But its very failure was a
preparation for receiving the true religion.” Hatch, Hibbert
Lectures, 133, 238—“Neo-Platonism, that splendid vision of
incomparable and irrecoverable cloudland in which the sun of Greek
philosophy set.... On its ethical side Christianity had large
elements in common with reformed Stoicism; on its theological side
it moved in harmony with the new movements of Platonism.” E. G.
Robinson: “The idea that all religions but the Christian are the
direct work of the devil is a Jewish idea, and is now abandoned.
On the contrary, God has revealed himself to the race just so far
as they have been capable of knowing him.... Any religion is
better than none, for all religion implies restraint.”

_John 1:9_—“_There was the true light, even the light which
lighteth every man, coming into the world_”—has its Old Testament
equivalent in _Ps. 94:10_—“_He that chastiseth the nations, shall
not he correct, Even he that teacheth man knowledge?_” Christ is
the great educator of the race. The preincarnate Word exerted an
influence upon the consciences of the heathen. He alone makes it
true that “anima naturaliter Christiana est.” Sabatier, Philos.
Religion, 138-140—“Religion is union between God and the soul.
That experience was first perfectly realized in Christ. Here are
the ideal fact and the historical fact united and blended.
Origen’s and Tertullian’s rationalism and orthodoxy each has its
truth. The religious consciousness of Christ is the fountain head
from which Christianity has flowed. He was a beginning of life to
men. He had the spirit of sonship—God in man, and man in God.
‘Quid interius Deo?’ He showed us insistence on the moral ideal,
yet the preaching of mercy to the sinner. The gospel was the
acorn, and Christianity is the oak that has sprung from it. In the
acorn, as in the tree, are some Hebraic elements that are
temporary. Paganism is the materializing of religion; Judaism is
the legalizing of religion. ‘In me,’ says Charles Secretan, ‘lives
some one greater than I.’ ”

But the positive element in heathenism was slight. Her altars and
sacrifices, her philosophy and art, roused cravings which she was
powerless to satisfy. Her religious systems became sources of
deeper corruption. There was no hope, and no progress. “The
Sphynx’s moveless calm symbolizes the monotony of Egyptian
civilization.” Classical nations became more despairing, as they
became more cultivated. To the best minds, truth seemed impossible
of attainment, and all hope of general well-being seemed a dream.
The Jews were the only forward-looking people; and all our modern
confidence in destiny and development comes from them. They, in
their turn, drew their hopefulness solely from prophecy. Not their
“genius for religion,” but special revelation from God, made them
what they were.

Although God was in heathen history, yet so exceptional were the
advantages of the Jews, that we can almost assent to the doctrine
of the New Englander, Sept. 1883:576—“The Bible does not recognize
other revelations. It speaks of the ‘_face of the covering that
covereth all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all
nations_’ (_Is. 25:7_); _Acts 14:16, 17_—‘_who in the generations
gone by suffered all the nations to walk in their own ways. And
yet he left not himself without witness_’ = not an internal
revelation in the hearts of sages, but an external revelation in
nature, ‘_in that he did good and gave you from heaven rains and
fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness._’
The convictions of heathen reformers with regard to divine
inspiration were dim and intangible, compared with the
consciousness of prophets and apostles that God was speaking
through them to his people.”

On heathenism as a preparation for Christ, see Tholuck, Nature and
Moral Influence of Heathenism, in Bib. Repos., 1832:80, 246, 441;
Döllinger, Gentile and Jew; Pressensé, Religions before Christ;
Max Müller, Science of Religion, 1-128; Cocker, Christianity and
Greek Philosophy; Ackerman, Christian Element in Plato; Farrar,
Seekers after God; Renan, on Rome and Christianity, in Hibbert
Lectures for 1880.

II. Positive Preparation,—in the history of Israel.

A single people was separated from all others, from the time of Abraham, and was educated in three great truths: (1) the majesty of God, in his unity, omnipotence, and holiness; (2) the sinfulness of man, and his moral helplessness; (3) the certainty of a coming salvation. This education from the time of Moses was conducted by the use of three principal agencies:

A. Law.—The Mosaic legislation, (_a_) by its theophanies and miracles, cultivated faith in a personal and almighty God and Judge; (_b_) by its commands and threatenings, wakened the sense of sin; (_c_) by its priestly and sacrificial system, inspired hope of some way of pardon and access to God.

The education of the Jews was first of all an education by Law. In
the history of the world, as in the history of the individual, law
must precede gospel, John the Baptist must go before Christ,
knowledge of sin must prepare a welcome entrance for knowledge of
a Savior. While the heathen were studying God’s works, the chosen
people were studying God. Men teach by words as well as by
works,—so does God. And words reveal heart to heart, as works
never can. “The Jews were made to know, on behalf of all mankind,
the guilt and shame of sin. Yet just when the disease was at its
height, the physicians were beneath contempt.” Wrightnour: “As if
to teach all subsequent ages that no outward cleansing would
furnish a remedy, the great deluge, which washed away the whole
sinful antediluvian world with the exception of one comparatively
pure family, had not cleansed the world from sin.”

With this gradual growth in the sense of sin there was also a
widening and deepening faith. Kuyper, Work of the Holy Spirit,
67—“Abel, Abraham, Moses = the individual, the family, the nation.
By faith Abel obtained witness; by faith Abraham received the son
of the promise; and by faith Moses led Israel through the Red
Sea.” Kurtz, Religionslehre, speaks of the relation between law
and gospel as “Ein fliessender Gegensatz”—“a flowing
antithesis”—like that between flower and fruit. A. B. Davidson,
Expositor, 6:163—“The course of revelation is like a river, which
cannot be cut up into sections.” E. G. Robinson: “The two
fundamental ideas of Judaism were: 1. theological—the unity of
God; 2. philosophical—the distinctness of God from the material
world. Judaism went to seed. Jesus, with the sledge-hammer of
truth, broke up the dead forms, and the Jews thought he was
destroying the Law.” On methods pursued with humanity by God, see
Simon, Reconciliation, 232-251.

B. Prophecy.—This was of two kinds: (_a_) verbal,—beginning with the protevangelium in the garden, and extending to within four hundred years of the coming of Christ; (_b_) typical,—in persons, as Adam, Melchisedek, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Jonah; and in acts, as Isaac’s sacrifice, and Moses’ lifting up the serpent in the wilderness.

The relation of law to gospel was like that of a sketch to the
finished picture, or of David’s plan for the temple to Solomon’s
execution of it. When all other nations were sunk in pessimism and
despair, the light of hope burned brightly among the Hebrews. The
nation was forward-bound. Faith was its very life. The O. T.
saints saw all the troubles of the present “sub specie
eternitatis,” and believed that “_Light is sown for the righteous,
And gladness for the upright in heart_” (_Ps. 97:11_). The hope of
Job was the hope of the chosen people: “_I know that my Redeemer
liveth, And at last he will stand up upon the earth_” (_Job
19:25_). Hutton, Essays, 2:237—“Hebrew supernaturalism has
transmuted forever the pure naturalism of Greek poetry. And now no
modern poet can ever become really great who does not feel and
reproduce in his writings the difference between the natural and
the supernatural.”

Christ was the reality, to which the types and ceremonies of
Judaism pointed; and these latter disappeared when Christ had
come, just as the petals of the blossom drop away when the fruit
appears. Many promises to the O. T. saints which seemed to them
promises of temporal blessing, were fulfilled in a better, because
a more spiritual, way than they expected. Thus God cultivated in
them a boundless trust—a trust which was essentially the same
thing with the faith of the new dispensation, because it was the
absolute reliance of a consciously helpless sinner upon God’s
method of salvation, and so was implicitly, though not explicitly,
a faith in Christ.

The protevangelium (_Gen. 3:15_) said “_it_ [this promised seed]
_shall bruise thy head_.” The “_it_” was rendered in some Latin
manuscripts “_ipsa_.” Hence Roman Catholic divines attributed the
victory to the Virgin. Notice that Satan was cursed, but not Adam
and Eve; for they were candidates for restoration. The promise of
the Messiah narrowed itself down as the race grew older, from
Abraham to Judah, David, Bethlehem, and the Virgin. Prophecy spoke
of “_the sceptre_” and of “_the seventy weeks_.” Haggai and
Malachi foretold that the Lord should suddenly come to the second
temple. Christ was to be true man and true God; prophet, priest,
and king; humbled and exalted. When prophecy had become complete,
a brief interval elapsed, and then he, of whom Moses in the law,
and the prophets, did write, actually came.

All these preparations for Christ’s coming, however, through the
perversity of man became most formidable obstacles to the progress
of the gospel. The Roman Empire put Christ to death. Philosophy
rejected Christ as foolishness. Jewish ritualism, the mere shadow,
usurped the place of worship and faith, the substance of religion.
God’s last method of preparation in the case of Israel was that of

C. Judgment—Repeated divine chastisements for idolatry culminated in the overthrow of the kingdom, and the captivity of the Jews. The exile had two principal effects: (_a_) religious,—in giving monotheism firm root in the heart of the people, and in leading to the establishment of the synagogue-system, by which monotheism was thereafter preserved and propagated; (_b_) civil,—in converting the Jews from an agricultural to a trading people, scattering them among all nations, and finally imbuing them with the spirit of Roman law and organization.

Thus a people was made ready to receive the gospel and to propagate it throughout the world, at the very time when the world had become conscious of its needs, and, through its greatest philosophers and poets, was expressing its longings for deliverance.

At the junction of Europe, Asia, and Africa, there lay a little
land through which passed all the caravan-routes from the East to
the West. Palestine was “the eye of the world.” The Hebrews
throughout the Roman world were “the greater Palestine of the
Dispersion.” The scattering of the Jews through all lands had
prepared a monotheistic starting point for the gospel in every
heathen city. Jewish synagogues had prepared places of assembly
for the hearing of the gospel. The Greek language—the universal
literary language of the world—had prepared a medium in which that
gospel could be spoken. “Cæsar had unified the Latin West, as
Alexander the Greek East”; and universal peace, together with
Roman roads and Roman law, made it possible for that gospel, when
once it had got a foothold, to spread itself to the ends of the
earth. The first dawn of missionary enterprise appears among the
proselyting Jews before Christ’s time. Christianity laid hold of
this proselyting spirit, and sanctified it, to conquer the world
to the faith of Christ.

Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 2:9, 10—“In his great expedition across
the Hellespont, Paul reversed the course which Alexander took, and
carried the gospel into Europe to the centres of the old Greek
culture.” In all these preparations we see many lines converging
to one result, in a manner inexplicable, unless we take them as
proofs of the wisdom and power of God preparing the way for the
kingdom of his Son; and all this in spite of the fact that “_a
hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the
Gentiles be come in_” (_Rom. 11:25_). James Robertson, Early
Religion of Israel, 15—“Israel now instructs the world in the
Worship of Mammon, after having once taught it the knowledge of
God.”

On Judaism, as a preparation for Christ, see Döllinger, Gentile
and Jew, 2:291-419; Martensen, Dogmatics, 224-236; Hengstenberg,
Christology of the O. T.; Smith, Prophecy a Preparation for
Christ; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 458-485; Fairbairn, Typology;
MacWhorter, Jahveh Christ; Kurtz, Christliche Religionslehre, 114;
Edwards’ History of Redemption, in Works, 1:297-395; Walker,
Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation; Conybeare and Howson, Life
and Epistles of St. Paul, 1:1-37; Luthardt, Fundamental Truths,
257-281; Schaff, Hist. Christian Ch., 1:32-49; Butler’s Analogy,
Bohn’s ed., 228-238; Bushnell, Vicarious Sac., 63-66; Max Müller,
Science of Language, 2:443; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk,
1:463-485; Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 47-73.