areth, and declared that they were now fulfilled (Lk. iv. 17-21). He quoted with approval the universalistic statement that the temple should be called a house of prayer for all the nations (Mk. xi. 17). He dealt kindly with the Samaritans, even making a Samaritan the hero of one of His parables, and in speaking to a Samaritan woman He said, just in the spirit of Is. lxvi., "The hour cometh when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father...the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be His worshippers" (John iv. 21-23). When asked for a sign He reminded them of Jonah (Mt. xvi. 4), but even the disciples did not understand the reference, for they had forgotten what the book of Jonah stood for. St Stephen quoted Is. lxvi. I as showing that God did not need a man-built house to dwell in (Acts vii. 48-50). St Paul's teaching about the law was remarkable, for he realized that the promises of God came first and the law afterwards. He tried to believe that the law was a maidaywyós leading to Christ (Gal. iii. 24). He found it difficult to place the law in any ordered scheme of development, and spoke of it as having come in adventitiously, πapeiσîìdev, Rom. v. 20. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who had more interest in the sacrificial cultus than any other Christian writer, proclaims that the sacrifices and offerings were taken away that the will of God might be done, "He taketh away the first that he may establish the second," Heb. x. 5-9. Thus we see that Christianity took those elements. B. E. J. 15 which in early Judaism were had in dishonour, and built them into the framework of a universal religion of the one Father to be worshipped everywhere in spirit and in truth; while those other elements which had the ascendancy in nascent Judaism could not be assimilated into a world-wide religion, and remain in post-Christian Judaism as a memorial and a proof of the rejection by the Jews of their missionary vocation. Let us cast our eyes abroad, and see how large a part of humanity has not yet heard the gospel of Christ, and beware lest we also fall into the same condemnation. |