תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

DID THE CROSS OF CHRIST FULFIL ALL

THE PROMISES?

PASTOR WILLIAM L. PETTINGILL

Dean of the Philadelphia School of the Bible; pastor of
North Church at Wilmington, Delaware; author
of "Simple Studies in Romans,” “Simple
Studies in the Revelation," etc.

In the 8th and the 9th verses of the 15th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans it is written: "Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy." Our Lord's purpose in coming to the world is here shown to be threefold:

First, He came for the truth of God.

Second, He came to confirm the promises made unto the fathers.

Third, He came in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.

I. Our Lord Jesus Christ came, first of all, for the truth of God. The word "truth" here might better be read, "truthfulness." He came to demonstrate the truthfulness and righteousness of His Father; He came to show that God was

"not a man that He should lie." He came to manifest that all that God had said should be done, and that all God's ways are right ways. It was needful that the Lord Jesus Christ should come to the earth for that purpose, even if there had been no other purpose. If no one was to live on the earth after the cross had been set up and the blood of the Son of God had been shed, it was still needful that that cross should be set up and that that blood should be shed.

In Romans 3:25 it is written that the Lord Jesus Christ came in order to show the righteousness of God "in the passing over of sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God." For thousands of years there had been going on what seemed to be a continual scandal, with reference to God's forgiveness of sins. God was apparently forgiving sins on inadequate grounds, and for unrighteous reasons. The blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins, and yet God seemed to be forgiving sins on account of the blood of bulls and goats. Now, as a matter of fact, the blood of bulls and goats never took away sins; the blood of bulls and goats never furnished God with a righteous reason for forgiving a single sin. It is not true that men were forgiven in olden times by reason of the blood of lambs, and rams, and bullocks. It seemed to be true, but it was not. The seeming of it to be true made God seem to be unrighteous. The Lord Jesus Christ was ordained from before the foundation of the world to die on a certain day on the brow of Calvary in order

that God might righteously forgive sins; and in olden times God was passing over sins, not on account of the blood of bulls and goats, but on account of the blood to which the blood of bulls and goats pointed, the blood typified by the blood of bulls and goats. God was forgiving sins because, in His reckoning from before the foundation of the world, the Lamb of God was already slain; and it was needful, in order that the righteousness of God might be manifested in the passing over of sins done aforetime, that Jesus should come and die on the cross of Calvary.

The same thing is stated again in Hebrews 9, where, in verse 15, it is shown that our Lord Jesus' death was, in part at least, "for the redemption of transgressions that were under the old testament." He died then for Adam and Eve, and the rest of the Old Testament folks, as well as for you, and for me, and for "whosoever will." He was "the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 Jno. 2:2). Our Lord Jesus, when He 'died on the cross, did a work that reached away back into the past even to Eden, and also reached away down into the future, even to the last man that shall live in the world. He died for all, and in God's reckoning, therefore, all died; and He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again (2 Cor. 5:15).

Our Lord Jesus Christ was a Minister of the circumcision for the truth of God-for the truth

fulness of God. It was therefore necessary, as we have seen, that he should die on the cross of Calvary in order to manifest the truthfulness and righteousness of His Father.

II. Our Lord Jesus Christ came down from heaven to confirm the promises made unto the fathers. The text says that He was a Minister of the circumcision: that is to say, His ministry had to do primarily with the circumcised nation, His people Israel. Certain great and wonderful promises had been made to Israel, and our Lord Jesus came, as the text shows, to confirm those promises. Most of the promises made unto the fathers were made unto fathers in Israel. It is true that there were promises made even before the days of Israel; but most of the promises were made to that nation after that nation had come into existence. The question is asked to-night, whether, by His death on the cross, our Lord Jesus fulfilled all the promises. He did not. But He did, by His death on the cross and by his testimony while here upon earth, confirm all the promises. In 2 Peter 1:19 we read that "we have also a more sure Word of prophecy." Or, as the Revision has it, "we have the Word of prophecy made more sure"; that is, confirmed. The word of prophecy has been "made more sure, 99 or confirmed, in two ways: first, by the fulfilment of much of it, and, second, by our Lord's testimony as to the ultimate fulfilment of the remainder of it. Now, the Word of prophecy includes "the promises

made unto the fathers" which our Lord came to confirm. He confirmed them, first, by fulfilling many of them; and He confirmed them, in the second place, by reiterating all of them.

In Luke 24:44, our Lord Jesus declared that all things which were written in the Law, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Him, must be fulfilled. When He made use of that expression, "the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms," He was referring, as all His hearers knew, to the whole of the Old Testament, which Old Testament was made up then, as it is made up now, of thirty-nine books, precisely the same thirty-nine books as we now have in the Old Testament. They were arranged in different order, but they were the same thirty-nine books, without any change whatever. In that passage, Luke 24:44, as well as in the 27th verse of the same chapter, our Lord Jesus Christ signed His name to the whole of the Old Testament, as the Word of God; and the endorsement of Jesus Christ is worth more to us than the endorsement of all the men in the wide world beside. We believe God.

He fulfilled many of the promises. And He fulfilled them in a certain way. He always fulfilled them literally. And the fact that He so fulfilled them gives us an unmistakable clue to promises yet remaining unfulfilled. People are having much controversy in these days about the matter of interpretation of prophecy. There are those who say that prophecy is not to be taken

« הקודםהמשך »