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Against all these impugners we have the direct and thrice uttered recognition of Christ. He appeals to the fact that when he was with them, he told them "that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning" him; he "opened their understandings that they might understand the scriptures," "and said unto them, Thus it is written, &c," giving by these three distinct recognitions of the binding authority of scripture, the strongest proof of his views on this point. He makes no distinction as to portions of higher or lower authority, but places the entire scripture on the commanding elevation of a supreme and divinely inspired rule of faith and practice, and one whose sufficiency was such as to need no supplementing authority or interpreter Nor is his recognition limited to the portions of scripture then written. The unwritten parts are equally endorsed in the words, "ye are witnesses of these things." v. 48. Here they were appointed to be the authorized witnesses of his gospel, and of course had assured to them the same reliable accuracy in delivering their testimony that he alleged in regard to the Old Testament witnesses, which was equivalent to a promise of inspiration. Hence we have here the great doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture as a rule of faith and practice, that the church of God rests on the Bible, as its

basis, and that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for our instruction in what is needful to salvation.

II. The great central doctrine of Revelation is a suffering and atoning Messiah.

When Jesus comes to explain what is written concerning him in the scripture, we find that it is, "thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day." v. 46. This was the great doctrine which to the Jews was a stumbling block, and to the Greeks, foolishness; and yet a doctrine taught in all the history, the revelation, and the types of the past, from Abel to John the Baptist.

The law spake of a suffering and atoning Messiah. Sacrifice would have been else an unmeaning cruelty. Every lamb, from that of Abel to Abraham, and the paschal lamb of Egypt, and the sacrificial pomp of Sinai, down to the last victim in the little upper chamber, pointed forward to the Lamb of God who was to take away the sin of the world. All the washings, and sprinklings, and vestments, and ritual of the law, found their meaning only in Christ, and can be fully interpreted only at the cross.

The prophets spake of him from Enoch to Malachi: Isaiah, sounding his gospel in terms of such unequalled grandeur; Jeremiah, uttering it in tears; Ezekiel, gazing, rapt in astonishment on the Son of Man; Daniel, counting the very weeks

until Messiah was to be cut off; Zechariah, proclaiming the lowly king; and Malachi, the refiner and purifier of silver, who should soon come to his temple. "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

The psalms, including all the devotional portions of the scripture, are also full of rich strains of tenderness and pathos, that find their key note only in the song of Moses and the Lamb.

The burden of all those utterances of revelation. was that Christ must suffer and rise from the dead, in other words, must make an atonement by suffering. This is the great cardinal doctrine of the Christian system, a doctrine which every age has seen attacked, and yet to which every age has been compelled at last to return, as the living, throbbing heart of the gospel. As the sense of sin grows faint in an individual or an age, the need of atonement is less deeply felt, and a mere symbolical, or figurative atonement is adopted instead of a real, vicarious substitution. But when the sense of sin grows deeper, and its intrinsic ill-desert is more clearly perceived, then this great doctrine of revelation begins to glow as if with light from heaven, that it behoved Christ both to suffer, and to rise again from the dead; since his suffering was needed as an atonement, and his resurrection as an authentication of this great transaction, from the hand of God himself. It is most marvellous

that this most sublime and touching act of love should be charged with the implication that it presents God in an implacable and unamiable light, as unwilling to forgive, when God had emptied his very throne, in a measure, to show that he was willing and waiting to forgive. It shows that sin is a great and horrible evil, and that God is a God of inflexible justice and truth; it shows that mere repentance, without atonement, can never procure pardon; but it also shows that God is merciful and full of love, as nothing else ever did, for he had but one Son, his well-beloved, and that Son he gave to suffer, that sinners might be saved.

Hence we learn the true nature and position of repentance. Repentance can procure pardon only after an atonement is made. And true repentance is only exercised by resting on the atonement. Here we find the test that distinguishes true and false repentance. False repentance is sin weeping because of the suffering that it has brought upon itself. True repentance is love weeping at the cross, its bitterest tears being wrung out by the fact that it has sinned against a goodness that can so freely, and yet at so costly a price, bestow a full and generous pardon. Hence we see why repentance and remission of sins could then be preached, as the result of the suffering and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If then an atonement for sin is the great central doctrine of revelation, it is the great central fact of history, for the plan of God's redeeming work is the most memorable part of his earthly government. Hence human history is one mighty oratorio of the Messiah, whose deep bass notes are the solemn and suffering tones which proclaim man a great sinner, and whose lofty alto is sounded by those glorious strains which proclaim Christ a great Saviour, and whose choral song bursts forth in the grand Hallelujah, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will to men." In the din and discord that are around us now, we cannot catch the mighty harmonies that run through the whole; but when we come to trace it from the great choral company around the throne, we shall then know, as we cannot now, how the song of the morning stars at the dawn of creation, and the song of the angels on the plains of Bethlehem, and the song of Moses and the Lamb, the new song in heaven, were all one and the same great melody, the wondrous harmony of justice and mercy, sin and salvation, righteousness and peace, by the work of Him who loved us and gave himself for us, and redeemed us by his blood.

III. A Divine power is needful to enable man to comprehend the gospel of Christ.

This appears from the statement of Luke, in

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