222
From Eternity Past
“God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.”
2 Corinthians
5:19
. Christ was the foundation and center of the sacrificial system.
Since the sin of our first parents, the Father has given the world into
the hands of Christ, that through His mediatorial work He may redeem
man and vindicate the authority of the law of God. All communion
between heaven and the fallen race has been through Christ. It was
the Son of God that gave to our first parents the promise of redemp-
tion. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses understood the
gospel. These holy men of old held communion with the Saviour who
was to come to our world in human flesh.
Christ was the leader of the Hebrews in the wilderness, the Angel
who, veiled in the cloudy pillar, went before the host. It was He who
gave the law to Israel.
Amid the glory of
Sinai Christ declared the ten precepts of His Father’s law. He gave to
Moses the law engraved upon tables of stone.
Christ spoke to His people through the prophets. The apostle Peter
says that the prophets “prophesied of the grace that should come unto
you, searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which
[257]
was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings
of Christ and the glory that should follow.”
1 Peter 1:10, 11
. It is the
voice of Christ that speaks through the Old Testament. “The testimony
of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
Revelation 19:10
.
While personally among men, Jesus directed the minds of the
people to the Old Testament. “Ye search the Scriptures, because ye
think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear
witness of Me.”
John 5:39
. At this time the books of the Old Testament
were the only part of the Bible in existence.
The ceremonial law was given by Christ. Even after it was no
longer to be observed, the great apostle Paul pronounces this law glo-
rious, worthy of its divine Originator. The cloud of incense ascending
with the prayers of Israel represents His righteousness that alone can
make the sinner’s prayer acceptable to God; the bleeding victim on
the altar testified of a Redeemer to come. Thus through darkness and
apostasy, faith was kept alive in the hearts of men until the advent of
the promised Messiah.
Jesus was the Light of the world before He came in the form of
humanity. The first gleam of light that pierced the gloom came from