Improvement

BEFORE I proceed to the next proposition, I would make some few remarks, by way of improvement, upon what has been said under this.

1. From what has been said, we may strongly argue, that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world; and so that the Christian religion, is the true religion, seeing that Christ is the very person so evidently pointed at, in all the great dispensations of divine providence from the very fall of man, and was so undoubtedly in so many instances foretold from age to age, and shadowed forth in a vast variety of types and figures. If we seriously consider the course of things from the beginning, and observe the motions of all the great wheels of providence from one age to another, we shall discern that they all tend hither. They are all as so many lines, whose course, if it be observed and accurately followed, it will be found that every one centers here. It is so very plain in many things, that it would argue stupidity to deny it. This therefore is undeniable, that this person is a divine person sent from God, that came into the world with his commission and authority, to do his work, and to declare his mind. The great Governor of the world, in all his great works before and since the flood, to Jews and Gentiles, down to the time of Christ's birth, has declared it. It cannot be any vain imagination, but a plain and evident truth, that that person that was born in Bethlehem, and dwelt at Nazareth, and at Capernaum, and was crucified without the gates of Jerusalem, must be the great Messiah, or anointed of God. And blessed are all they that believe in and confess him, and miserable are all that they deny him. This shows the unreasonableness of the Deists, who deny revealed religion, and of the Jews, who deny that this Jesus is the Messiah foretold and promised to their fathers.

Here it may be some persons may be ready to object, and say, That it may be, some subtle, cunning men contrived this history, and these prophecies, so that they should all point to Jesus Christ on purpose to confirm it, that he is the Messiah. To such it may be replied, How could such a thing be contrived by cunning men to point to Jesus Christ, long before he ever was born? How could they know that ever any such person would be born? And how could their craft and subtlety help them to foresee and point at an event that was to come to pass many ages afterwards? For no fact can be more evident, than that the Jews had those writings long before Christ was born; as they have them still in great veneration, wherever they are, in all their dispersions through the world; and they would never have received such a contrivance from Christians, to point to and confirm Jesus to be the Messiah, whom they always denied to be the Messiah; and much less would they have been made to believe that they always had had those books in their hands, when they were first made and imposed upon them.

2. What has been said, affords a strong argument for the divine authority of the books of the Old Testament, from that admirable harmony there is in them, whereby they all point to the same thing. For we may see by what has been said, how all the parts of the Old Testament, though written by so many different penmen, and in ages distant one from another, do all harmonize one with another; all agree in one, and all centre in the same thing, and that a future thing; an event which it was impossible any one of them should know but by divine revelation, even the future coming of Christ. This is most evident and manifest in them, as appears by what has been said.

Now, if the Old Testament was not inspired by God, what account can be given of such an agreement? For if these books were only human writings, written without any divine direction, then none of these penmen knew that there would come such a person as Jesus Christ into the world; his coming was only a mere figment of their own brain. And if so, how happened it, that this figment of theirs came to pass? How came a vain imagination of theirs, which they foretold without any manner of ground of their prediction, to be exactly fulfilled? And especially how did they come all to agree in it, all pointing exactly to the same thing, though many of them lived so many hundred years distant one from another?

This admirable consent and agreement in a future event, is therefore a clear and certain evidence of the divine authority of those writings.

3. Hence we may learn what a weak and ignorant objection it is that some make against some parts of the Old Testament's being the word of God, that they consist so much of histories of the wars and civil transactions of the kings and people of the nation of the Jews. Some say, We find here among the books of a particular nation, histories which they kept of the state of their nation from one age to another; histories of their kings and rulers, histories of their wars with the neighbouring nations, and histories of the changes that happened from time to time in their state and government: and so we find that other nations used to keep histories of their public affairs, as well as they; and why then should we think that these histories which the Jews kept are the word of God, more than those of other people? But what has been said, shows the folly and vanity of such an objection. For hereby it appears, that the case of the histories is very different from that of all other histories. This history alone gives us an account of the first original of all things; and this history alone deduces things down in a wonderful series from that original, giving an idea of the grand scheme of divine providence, as tending to its great end. And together with the doctrines and prophecies contained in it, the same book gives a view of the whole series of the great events of divine providence, from the first original to the last end and consummation of all things, giving an excellent and glorious account of the wise and holy designs of the governor of the world in all.

No common history has such penmen as this history, which was all written by men who came with evident signs and testimonies of their being prophets of the most high God immediately inspired.

The histories that were written, as we have seen from what has been said under this proposition, do all contain those great events of providence, by which it appears how God has been carrying on the glorious divine work of redemption from age to age. Though they are histories, yet they are no less full of divine instruction, and those things that show forth Christ, and his glorious gospel, than other parts of the holy scriptures which are not historical.

To object against a book's being divine, merely because it is historical, is a poor objection; just as if that could not be the word of God which gives an account of what is past; or as though it were not reasonable to suppose, that God, in a revelation he should give mankind, would give us any relation of the dispensations of his own providence. If it be so, it must be because his works are not worthy to be related. It must be because the scheme of his government, and series of his dispensations towards his church, and towards the world that he has made, whereby he has ordered and disposed it from age to age, is not worthy that any record should be kept of it.

The objection that is made, That it is a common thing for nations and kingdoms to write histories and keep records of their wars, and the revolutions that come to pass in their territories, is so far from being a weighty objection against the historical part of scripture, as though it were not the word of God, that it is a strong argument in favour of it. For if reason and the light of nature teaches all civilized nations to keep records of the events of their human government, and the series of their administrations, and to publish histories for the information of others; how much more may we expect that God would give the world a record of the dispensations of his divine government, which doubtless is infinitely more worthy of an history for our information? If wise kings have taken care that there should be good histories written of the nations over which they have reigned, shall we think it incredible, that Jesus Christ should take care that his church, which is his nation, his peculiar people, should have in their hands a certain infallible history of their nation, and of his government of them?

If it had not been for the history of the Old Testament, how woefully should we have been left in the dark about many things which the church of God needs to know! How ignorant should we have been of God's dealings towards mankind, and towards his church, from the beginning! And we would have been wholly in the dark about the creation of the world, the fall of man, the first rise and continued progress of the dispensations of grace towards fallen mankind! And we should have known nothing how God at first set up a church in the world, and how it was preserved; after what manner he governed it from the beginning, how the light of the gospel first began to dawn in the world; how it increased, and how things were preparing for the coming of Christ.

If we are Christians, we belong to that building of God that has been the subject of our discourse from this text: but if it had not been for the history of the Old Testament, we should never have known what was the first occasion of God's going about this building, and how the foundation of it was laid at first, and how it has gone on from the beginning. The times of the history of the Old Testament are mostly times that no other history reaches up to; and therefore, if God had not taken care to give and preserve an account of these things for us, we should have been wholly without them.

Those that object against the authority of the Old Testament history of the nation of the Jews, may as well make it an objection against Moses's account of the creation that it is historical. For, in the other, we have an history of a work no less important namely the work of redemption. Yea, this is a far greater and more glorious work, as we observed before. That if it be inquired which of the two works, the work of creation, or the work of providence, is greatest? it must be answered, the work of providence. But the work of redemption is the greatest of the works of providence.

Let those who make this objection consider what part of the Old Testament history can be spared, without making a great breach in that thread or series of events by which this glorious work has been carried on. This leads me to observe.

4. That, from what has been said, we may see much of the wisdom of God in the composition of the scriptures of the Old Testament, that is in the parts of which it consists. By what it has been said, we may see that God hath wisely given us such revelations in the Old Testament as we needed. Let us briefly take a view of the several parts of it, and of the need there was of them.

Thus it was necessary that we should have some account of the creation of the world, and of the degeneracy of it, and of the universal deluge, and some account of the origin of nations after this destruction of mankind.

It seems necessary that there should be some account of the succession of the church of God from the beginning: and seeing God suffered all the world to degenerate, and only took one nation to be his people, to preserve the true worship and religion till the Saviour of the world should come, that in them the world might gradually be prepared for that great light, and those wonderful things that he was to be the author of, and that they might be a typical nation, and that in them God might shadow forth and teach, as under a veil, all future glorious things of the gospel; it was therefore necessary that we should have some account of this thing, how it was first done by the calling of Abraham, and by their being bond-slaves in Egypt, and how they were brought to Canaan. It was necessary that we should have some account of the revelation which God made of himself to that people, in giving their law, and in the appointment of their typical worship, and those things wherein the gospel is veiled, and of the forming of that people, both as to their civil and ecclesiastical state.

It seems exceeding necessary that we should have some account of their being actually brought to Canaan, the country that was their promised land, and where they always dwelt. It seems very necessary that we should have an history of the successions of the church of Israel, and of those providences of God towards them, which were most considerable and fullest of gospel mystery. It seems necessary that we should have some account of the highest promised external glory of that nation under David and Solomon, and that we should have a very particular account of David, whose history is so full of the gospel, and so necessary in order to introduce the gospel into the world, and in whom began the race of their kings; and that we should have some account of the building of the temple, which was also so full of gospel-mystery.

It is a matter of great consequence, that we should have some account of Israel's dividing from Judah, and of the ten tribes' captivity and utter rejection, and a brief account why, and therefore a brief history of them till that time. It is necessary that we should have an account of the succession of the kings of Judah, and of the church, till their captivity into Babylon; and that we should have some account of their return from their captivity, and resettlement in their own land, and of the origin of the last state that the church was in before Christ came.

A little consideration will convince every one, that all these things were necessary, and that none of them could be spared; and in the general, that it was necessary that we should have an history of God's church in such times as are within the reach of human histories; and it was of vast importance that we should have an inspired history of those times of the Jewish church, wherein there was kept up a more extraordinary intercourse between God and them, and while he used to dwell among them as it were visibly, revealing himself by the Shechinah, by Urim and Thummim, and by prophecy, and so more, immediately to order their affairs. And it was necessary that we should have some account of the great dispensations of God in prophecy, which were to be after the finishing of inspired history; and so it was exceeding suitable and needful that there should be a number of prophets raised who should foretell the coming of the Son of God, and the nature and glory of his kingdom, to be as so many harbingers to make way for him, and that their prophecies should remain in the church.

It was also a matter of great consequence that the church should have a book of divine songs given by inspiration from God, wherein there should be a lively representation of the true spirit of devotion, of faith, hope, and divine love, joy, resignation, humility, obedience, repentance, etc. and also that we should have from God, such books of moral instructions as we have in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, relating to the affairs and state of mankind, and the concerns of human life, containing rules of true wisdom and prudence for our conduct in all circumstances; and that we should have particularly a song representing the great love between Christ and his spouse the church, particularly adapted to the disposition and holy affections of a true Christian soul towards Christ, and representing his grace and marvellous love to, and delight in, his people; as we have in Solomon's Song; and especially that we should have a book to teach us how to conduct ourselves under affliction, seeing the church of God here is in a militant state, and God's people do through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of heaven; and the church is for so long a time under trouble, and meets with such exceeding fiery trials, and extreme sufferings, before her time of peace and rest in the latter ages of the world shall come: therefore God has given us a book most proper in these circumstances, even the book of Job, written upon occasion of the afflictions of a particular saint, and was probably at first given to the church in Egypt under her afflictions there; and is made use of by the Apostle to comfort Christians under persecutions, James 5:11. "Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy." God was also pleased, in this book of Job, to give some view of the ancient divinity before the giving of the law.

Thus, from this brief review, I think it appears, that every part of the scriptures of the Old Testament is very useful and necessary, and no part of it can be spared, without loss to the church. And therefore, as I said, the wisdom of God is conspicuous in ordering that the scriptures of the Old Testament should consist of those very books of which they do consist.

Before I dismiss this particular, I would add, that it is very observable, that the history of the Old Testament is large and particular where the great affair of redemption required it; as where there was most done towards this work, and most to typify Christ, and to prepare the way for him. Thus it is very large and particular in the history of Abraham and the other patriarchs; but very short in the account we have of the time which the children of Israel spent in Egypt. So again it is large in the account of the redemption out of Egypt, and the first settling of the affairs of the Jewish church and nation in Moses and Joshua's time; but much shorter in the account of the times of the judges. So again, it is large and particular in the account of David's and Solomon's times, and then very short in the history of the ensuing reigns. Thus the accounts are large or short, just as there is more or less of the affair of redemption to be seen in them.

5. From what has been said, we may see, that Christ and his redemption are the great subject of the whole Bible. Concerning the New Testament, the matter is plain; and by what has been said on this subject hitherto, it appears to be so also with respect to the Old Testament. Christ and his redemption is the great subject of the prophecies of the Old Testament, as has been shown. It has also been shown, that he is the great subject of the songs of the Old Testament; and the moral rules and precepts are all given in subordination to him. And Christ and his redemption are also the great subject of the history of the Old Testament from the beginning all along; and even the history of the creation is brought in as an introduction to the history of redemption that immediately follows it. The whole book, both Old Testament and New, is filled up with the gospel; only with this difference, that the Old Testament contains the gospel under a veil, but the New contains it unveiled, so that we may see the glory of the Lord with open face.

6. By what has been said, we may see the usefulness and excellency of the Old Testament. Some are ready to look on the Old Testament as being as it were out of date, and as if we in these days of the gospel have but little to do with it; which is a very great mistake, arising from want of observing the nature and design of the Old Testament, which, if it were observed, would appear full of the gospel of Christ, and would in an excellent manner illustrate and confirm the glorious doctrines and promises of the New Testament. Those parts of the Old Testament which are commonly looked upon as containing the least divine instruction, are as it were mines and treasures of gospel knowledge; and the reason why they are thought to contain so little is, because persons do but superficially read them. The treasures which are hid underneath are not observed. They only look on the top of the ground, and so suddenly pass a judgment that there is nothing there. But they never dig into the mine; if they did, they would find it richly stored with silver and gold, and would be abundantly requited for their pains.

What has been said, may show us what a precious treasure God has committed into our hands, in that he has given us the Bible. How little do most persons consider, how much they enjoy, in that they have the possession of that holy book the Bible, which they have in their hands, and may converse with it as they please. What an excellent book is this, and how far exceeding all human writings, that reveals God to us, and gives us a view of the grand design and glorious scheme of providence from the beginning of the world, either in history or prophecy; that reveals the great Redeemer and his glorious redemption, and the various steps by which God accomplishes it from the first foundation to the top-stone! Shall we prize an history which gives us a clear account of some great earthly prince, or mighty warrior, as of Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, or the Duke of Marlborough? and shall we not prize the history that God gives us of the glorious kingdom of his Son Jesus Christ, the Prince and Saviour, and of the wars and other great transactions of that King of kings, and Lord of armies, the Lord mighty in battle? the history of the things which he has wrought for the redemption of his chosen people;

7. What has been said, may make us sensible how much most persons are to blame for their inattentive, unobservant way of reading the scriptures. How much do the scriptures contain, if it were but observed? The Bible is the most comprehensive book in the world. But what will all this signify to us, if we read it without observing what is the drift of the Holy Ghost in it? The Psalmist, Psalm 119:18 begs of God, "That he would enlighten his eyes that he might behold wondrous things out of his law." The scriptures are full of wondrous things. Those histories which are commonly read as if they were only histories of the private concerns of such and such particular persons, such as the histories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, and the history of Ruth, and the histories of particular lawgivers and princes, as the history of Joshua and the Judges, and David, and the Israelite princes, are accounts of vastly greater things, things of greater importance, and more extensive concern, than they that read them are commonly aware of.

The histories of scripture are commonly read as if they were stories written only to entertain men's fancies, and to while away their leisure hours, when the infinitely great things contained or pointed at in them are passed over and never taken notice of. Whatever treasures the scriptures contain, we shall be never the better for them if we do not observe them. He that has a Bible, and does not observe what is contained in it, is like a man who has a box full of silver and gold, and does not know it, does not observe that it is any thing more than a vessel filled with common stones. As long as it is thus with him, he will be never the better for his treasure: for he that knows not that he has a treasure, will never make use of what he has, and so might as well be without it. He who has a plenty of the choicest food stored up in his house, and does not know it, will never taste what he has, and will be as likely to starve as if his house were empty.

8. What has been said, may show us how great a person Jesus Christ is, and how great an errand he came into the world upon, seeing there was so much done to prepare the way for his coming. God had been doing nothing else but prepare the way for his coming, and doing the work which he had to do in the world, through all ages of the world from the very beginning. If we had notice of a certain stranger's being about to come into a country, and should observe that a great preparation was made for his coming, that many months were taken up in it, and great things were done, many great alterations were made in the state of the whole country, and that many hands were employed, and persons of great note were engaged in making preparation for the coming of this person, and the whole country was overturned, and all the affairs and concerns of the country were ordered so as to be subservient to the design of entertaining that person when he should come; it would be natural for us to think with ourselves, why, surely, this person is some extraordinary person indeed, and it is some very great business that he is coming upon.

How great a person then must he be, for whose coming into the world the great God of heaven and earth, and governor of all things, spent four thousand years in preparing the way, going about it soon after the world was created, and from age to age doing great things, bringing mighty events to pass, accomplishing wonders without number, often overturning the world in order to it, causing every thing in the state of mankind, and all revolutions and changes in the habitable world from generation to generation to be subservient to this great design? Surely this must be some great and extraordinary person indeed, and a great work indeed it must necessarily be that he is coming about.

We read, Matthew 21:8, 9, 10, that when Christ was coming into Jerusalem, and the multitudes ran before him, and cut down branches of palm trees, and strewed them in the way, and others spread their garments in the way, and cried, "Hosanna to the son of David," that the whole city was moved, saying, Who is this? They wondered who that extraordinary person should be, that there should be such an ado made on occasion of his coming into the city, and to prepare the way before him. But if we consider what has been said on this subject, what great things were done in all ages to prepare the way for Christ's coming into the world, and how the world was often overturned to make way for it, much more may we cry out, Who is this? What great person is this? And say, as in Psalm 24:8, 10, "Who is this King of glory," that God should show such respect, and put such vast honor upon him? Surely this person is honorable indeed in God's eyes, and greatly beloved of him; and surely it is a great errand upon which he is sent into the world.

Before moving on to the next proposition, I want to offer a few reflections on what has been presented here.

1. What we have seen gives strong grounds for concluding that Jesus of Nazareth is truly the Son of God and the Savior of the world — and therefore that the Christian faith is the true religion. Christ is the very person so plainly pointed to in all the great works of divine Providence from the fall of man onward, and He was undoubtedly foretold age after age in countless ways and foreshadowed in a vast variety of types and pictures. If we thoughtfully consider the course of history from the beginning and trace the movements of all the great wheels of Providence from one age to the next, we will see that they all converge here. They are like countless lines that, when followed carefully, are all found to meet at the same point. It is so plain in many cases that denying it would reflect a failure to think clearly. This is therefore undeniable: that this person is a divine person sent from God, who came into the world with God's commission and authority to do His work and declare His mind. The great Governor of the world declared it through all His great works before and after the flood — to Jews and Gentiles — down to the very birth of Christ. It cannot be mere imagination; it is a clear and evident truth that the person born in Bethlehem, who lived in Nazareth and Capernaum, and was crucified outside the gates of Jerusalem, must be the great Messiah, the Anointed of God. Blessed are all who believe in and confess Him; miserable are all who deny Him. This exposes the unreasonableness both of the Deists, who reject revealed religion, and of the Jewish people, who deny that this Jesus is the Messiah promised to their fathers.

Someone might object here that perhaps clever men contrived this history and these prophecies to all point to Jesus Christ, in order to confirm that He is the Messiah. To that objection one may reply: how could clever men have arranged things to point to Jesus Christ long before He was ever born? How could they have known that any such person would ever appear? How could their cleverness help them foresee and predict an event many ages in the future? The fact that the Jewish people possessed these writings long before Christ was born is beyond question — they still hold them in high esteem today, wherever they are scattered throughout the world. They would never have accepted a fabrication invented by Christians to point to and confirm Jesus as the Messiah, whom they have always denied. Still less would they have been persuaded that they had always possessed books that were actually recently fabricated and handed to them.

2. What we have seen also provides a strong argument for the divine authority of the books of the Old Testament, based on the remarkable harmony that runs through them — how they all point to the same thing. As we have seen, all the parts of the Old Testament, though written by many different authors in widely separated eras, are in perfect harmony with one another. They all agree, all pointing to the same thing — a future event, something that none of them could have known except by divine revelation: the future coming of Christ. This is plainly evident from everything we have examined.

If the Old Testament was not divinely inspired, how can this agreement be explained? If these were merely human writings, composed without any divine guidance, then none of these authors knew that someone like Jesus Christ would come into the world. His coming would have been nothing but a product of their imagination. If so, how did something they imagined actually come to pass? How did a prediction they made without any basis for making it turn out to be exactly fulfilled? And how did they all agree on it — all pointing to the exact same event — even though many of them lived hundreds of years apart?

This remarkable agreement, pointing to a single future event across all these writings, is therefore clear and certain evidence of the divine authority of the Old Testament.

3. This also shows how weak an objection it is when some people argue that parts of the Old Testament cannot be the word of God because they consist so largely of historical accounts of the wars and public affairs of the Jewish nation. Some say: we find among the books of a particular nation their chronicles of national affairs from one age to the next — records of their kings, their wars with neighboring peoples, and the changes in their government over time. Other nations also kept such records. Why, then, should we regard the Jewish records as the word of God any more than those of other peoples? But what we have seen shows the emptiness of that objection. The case of these histories is entirely different from all other histories. This history alone gives us an account of the original of all things, and it alone traces things in a remarkable chain from that origin, giving us a view of the grand scheme of divine Providence moving toward its ultimate end. Together with the doctrines and prophecies contained in it, this same book gives us a view of the entire series of great events in divine Providence — from the very beginning to the final consummation of all things — and provides an excellent and glorious account of the wise and holy purposes of the Governor of the world in all of them.

No ordinary history was written by authors like those of this history — men who came with clear signs and evidence that they were prophets of the Most High God, directly inspired by Him.

The historical books of the Old Testament, as we have seen from our study of this proposition, all record those great events of Providence through which God has been advancing the glorious work of redemption from age to age. Though they are historical in form, they are no less filled with divine instruction — no less full of what reveals Christ and His glorious Gospel — than the non-historical portions of Holy Scripture.

To object that a book cannot be divine simply because it is historical is a weak argument — as if something could not be the word of God because it tells us what has happened, or as if it would be unreasonable for God, in giving mankind a revelation, to include an account of His own providential works. If that objection holds, it must be because His works are not worth recording. It must be because the design of His government — the entire series of His dealings with His church and with the world He made, by which He has ordered all things from age to age — is not worthy of any record.

The very fact that all civilized nations have kept records of their wars and the changes in their territories, far from being an argument against Scripture's historical portions being the word of God, is actually a strong argument in favor of it. If reason and the light of nature lead all civilized peoples to preserve records of the events of their human governments and publish histories for others to learn from — how much more should we expect God to give the world a record of His divine government, which is surely infinitely more worthy of being set down for our instruction? If wise kings have taken care to ensure good histories were written of the nations they ruled, should it seem incredible that Jesus Christ would take care that His church — His nation, His own people — would have in their hands a reliable and certain history of their community and of His governance of them?

Without the history of the Old Testament, how completely in the dark we would be about so many things the church of God needs to know! We would know nothing of God's dealings with humanity and with His church from the beginning. We would be entirely in the dark about the creation of the world, the fall of man, the first rise and ongoing development of God's gracious dealings with fallen humanity. We would know nothing of how God first established a church in the world, how it was preserved, how He governed it from the beginning, how the light of the Gospel first began to dawn in the world, how it grew, and how everything was being prepared for the coming of Christ.

If we are Christians, we belong to that building of God which has been the subject of our discussion throughout this text. But without the history of the Old Testament, we would never have known what first prompted God to begin this building, how its foundation was laid, or how the work proceeded from the start. The period covered by the history of the Old Testament is mostly a time that no other historical record reaches. If God had not taken care to provide and preserve an account of these things for us, we would have had none at all.

Those who object to the authority of the Old Testament's history of the Jewish nation might just as well object to Moses's account of creation on the grounds that it too is historical. For in the rest of the Old Testament history we have an account of a work no less important — the work of redemption. In fact it is a far greater and more glorious work, as we noted earlier. If we ask which is the greater work — creation or Providence — the answer must be: Providence. And the work of redemption is the greatest of all the works of Providence.

Let those who raise this objection consider: which part of the Old Testament history could be removed without creating a serious gap in the chain of events through which this glorious work has been advanced? This leads me to a further observation.

4. From what has been said, we can see much of God's wisdom in the composition of the Old Testament Scriptures — in the specific parts of which it is made up. We can see that God has wisely given us in the Old Testament exactly the revelations we needed. Let us briefly survey the various parts of it and consider why each was necessary.

First, it was necessary that we have some account of the creation of the world, of the fall into sin, of the universal flood, and of the origin of the nations that descended from those who survived it.

It was also necessary to have some account of the succession of God's church from the beginning. God allowed all the world to fall away and chose only one nation to preserve true worship and religion until the Savior of the world should come. Through that nation the world was to be gradually prepared for the great light and wonderful events that would follow, and that nation was to be a typical people in whom God would foreshadow and teach all future glories of the Gospel as under a veil. It was therefore necessary to have an account of how this was accomplished — through the calling of Abraham, through Israel's bondage in Egypt, and through their being brought into Canaan. It was also necessary to have an account of the revelation God gave to that people in the giving of the law, in the appointment of their symbolic worship, and in all the things through which the Gospel was veiled — and of the shaping of that people in both their civil and religious life.

It was clearly necessary to have some account of Israel's actual arrival in Canaan, the promised land where they would make their home. It was very necessary to have a history of the succession of the church of Israel and of the providences of God toward them that were most significant and most rich in Gospel meaning. It was necessary to have some account of the highest outward glory that nation reached under David and Solomon, with particular detail about David — whose story is so full of Gospel content and so important for understanding how the Gospel would enter the world, and in whom the royal line began. It was also necessary to have an account of the building of the temple, which was likewise so filled with Gospel significance.

It was important to have an account of the division of Israel and Judah, of the ten tribes' captivity and final rejection, and a brief account of why this happened — and therefore a brief history of them leading up to that point. It was necessary to have an account of the succession of the kings of Judah and of the church until the Babylonian captivity, and an account of the return from captivity, the resettlement in the land, and the origin of the state the church was in during its final period before Christ came.

A little reflection will convince anyone that all of these elements were necessary and that none of them could be removed. In general, it was essential to have a history of God's church during those times that fall within the range of human historical memory. And it was of great importance to have an inspired history of those periods of the Jewish church when God kept up an especially close and direct communication with His people — when He dwelt among them visibly, as it were, revealing Himself through the Shekinah, through Urim and Thummim, and through prophecy, directing their affairs more immediately. It was also necessary to have some account of the great works of God in prophecy that would follow after the era of inspired history ended. It was therefore entirely fitting and necessary that a number of prophets be raised up to foretell the coming of the Son of God and the nature and glory of His kingdom — so many heralds preparing the way before Him — and that their prophecies would be preserved in the church.

It was also of great importance that the church receive a book of divinely inspired songs, in which the true spirit of devotion would be vividly portrayed — faith, hope, love, joy, surrender, humility, obedience, repentance, and all the rest. It was important to have books of moral instruction like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, dealing with human affairs and the practical concerns of life, providing rules of genuine wisdom and sound judgment for every circumstance. It was also fitting to have a song representing the great love between Christ and His bride the church, particularly suited to expressing a true Christian soul's holy affections toward Christ and representing His grace and extraordinary love for and delight in His people — which is what we have in the Song of Solomon. Above all it was important to have a book that would teach us how to conduct ourselves under suffering — since the church of God is in a state of struggle here, and God's people enter the kingdom of heaven through much tribulation. The church endures hardship for so long and faces such intense trials and extreme suffering before her final age of peace and rest arrives. God has therefore given us a book perfectly suited to these circumstances: the book of Job, written on the occasion of a particular believer's sufferings, and probably given first to the church during its affliction in Egypt. The apostle James uses it to comfort Christians under persecution in James 5:11: "You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful." God also chose, in the book of Job, to give some picture of ancient theology from before the giving of the law.

From this brief survey, I think it is clear that every part of the Old Testament Scriptures is genuinely useful and necessary, and that no part of it could be removed without loss to the church. And so, as I said, God's wisdom is clearly visible in arranging for the Old Testament Scriptures to consist of exactly the books they do.

Before leaving this point, I want to note that the Old Testament history is detailed and extensive precisely where the work of redemption called for it — where the most was being done to advance that work, to picture Christ, and to prepare the way for Him. It is extensive and detailed in the history of Abraham and the other patriarchs, but brief in covering the time Israel spent in Egypt. It is again extensive in the account of the redemption from Egypt and the establishing of the Jewish church and nation under Moses and Joshua, but much briefer in the period of the judges. It is again extensive and detailed in the accounts of David's and Solomon's reigns, and then much shorter in the history of the following reigns. In this way the length of the accounts expands or contracts in direct proportion to how much of the work of redemption is visible in them.

5. From what has been said, we can see that Christ and His redemption are the great subject of the entire Bible. This is obvious with respect to the New Testament. But as we have seen throughout our study, it is equally true of the Old Testament. Christ and His redemption are the great theme of the Old Testament prophecies, as we have shown. He is also the great theme of the Old Testament songs, and all the moral rules and instructions given there are subordinated to Him. Christ and His redemption are likewise the great theme of Old Testament history from the very beginning — and even the account of creation functions as an introduction to the history of redemption that immediately follows it. The entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is filled with the Gospel. The difference is only this: the Old Testament contains the Gospel under a veil, while the New Testament unveils it, so that we may behold the glory of the Lord with open face.

6. From what has been said, we can see the value and excellence of the Old Testament. Some are inclined to regard the Old Testament as out of date — as if those of us living in the era of the Gospel have little use for it. This is a serious mistake, arising from failure to understand the nature and purpose of the Old Testament. If people understood it, they would find it full of the Gospel of Christ and would see how beautifully it illuminates and confirms the glorious teachings and promises of the New Testament. Even those parts of the Old Testament most commonly thought to contain the least divine instruction are like mines filled with Gospel treasure. The reason people think they contain so little is simply that they read them too hastily and superficially. The treasure buried underneath goes unnoticed. They only look at the surface and quickly conclude there is nothing there. But they have never dug into the mine. If they had, they would find it richly stored with treasure and would be richly rewarded for the effort.

What has been said should help us see what a precious treasure God has placed in our hands by giving us the Bible. How little do most people appreciate what they have in possessing the Bible — a book they hold in their hands and can read whenever they please. What an extraordinary book it is, surpassing all human writings — revealing God to us, showing us the grand design and glorious plan of Providence from the beginning of the world in history and prophecy, revealing the great Redeemer and His glorious redemption, and tracing all the steps by which God brings it to completion from the laying of the foundation to the placing of the capstone! Do we value a history that gives us a clear account of some great earthly ruler or military commander — of Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, or the Duke of Marlborough? Then shall we not value the history God has given us of the glorious kingdom of His Son Jesus Christ, the Prince and Savior — the account of the wars and great deeds of that King of kings and Lord of armies, the Lord mighty in battle? The history of what He has accomplished for the redemption of His chosen people?

7. What has been said should also make us aware of how much most people are at fault for reading the Scriptures inattentively and without observing what is actually there. How much is contained in the Scriptures, for those who will look for it! The Bible is the most comprehensive book in the world. But what good will all that do us if we read it without noticing the purpose of the Holy Spirit in it? The psalmist in Psalm 119:18 prays, "Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things from Your law." The Scriptures are full of wonders. Those accounts so often read as if they were simply personal histories of individuals — the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, the story of Ruth, the histories of leaders and rulers like Joshua, the judges, David, and the kings of Israel — are accounts of vastly greater things, of far more importance and wider significance than most readers ever realize.

Scripture histories are commonly read as if they were stories written simply to entertain, to pass the time — while the infinitely important things contained or pointed to in them are passed over and never noticed. Whatever treasures the Scriptures contain, we will be no better for them if we do not attend to them. A person who has a Bible and does not observe what is in it is like someone who has a box full of silver and gold but does not realize it — who treats it as nothing more than a container of ordinary stones. As long as that is the case, the treasure does him no good. The person who does not know he has treasure will never use it, and might as well have nothing. A person who has a plentiful supply of the finest food stored in his house but does not know it will never taste any of it — and is just as likely to starve as if the house were empty.

8. What has been said shows us how great a person Jesus Christ is, and how momentous the mission He came into the world to accomplish — given how much was done to prepare for His coming. From the very beginning of the world, God had been doing nothing other than preparing the way for His coming and advancing the work He was to do in the world, through all the ages of history. If we heard that a certain person was about to arrive in a country, and we observed that enormous preparations were being made — months of effort, great changes to the state of the entire country, many people of great importance engaged in the preparations, the whole land reshaped with all its affairs arranged to serve the welcome of this one person — we would naturally conclude: this must be a truly extraordinary person, and his business here must be of the greatest importance.

How great, then, must He be for whose coming into the world the great God of heaven and earth — the Governor of all things — spent four thousand years in preparation? He began working toward it soon after the world was created and from age to age accomplished great things: bringing about mighty events, performing wonders without number, repeatedly overturning the world to make way for it, causing every circumstance of human history and every revolution and change in the world from generation to generation to serve this one great design. Surely this must be an utterly extraordinary person, and the work He was coming to accomplish must be a work of the greatest imaginable importance.

Matthew 21:8-10 tells us that when Christ entered Jerusalem and the crowds ran ahead of Him, cutting down palm branches and spreading them on the road, laying their garments down before Him and crying "Hosanna to the Son of David," the whole city was stirred and asked: Who is this? They were amazed that such an extraordinary person was being welcomed with such fanfare. But if we consider what we have seen — the great things done in every age to prepare the way for Christ's coming into the world, and how the world was repeatedly overturned to make room for it — we have still greater reason to ask, Who is this? What great person is this? And to say, as in Psalm 24:8 and 10, "Who is this King of glory" — that God should show such regard and bestow such incomprehensible honor upon Him? Surely this person is incomparably honored in God's sight and deeply beloved by Him, and surely the mission on which He has been sent into the world is of the highest possible importance.