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6
TRHCK THROUGH THE SIRLE
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE.
HE period in the history of Israel,
which was specifically that of the
prophet, lasted for about five hundred
years, from the beginning of the ninth
to the beginning of the fourth centuries
before Christ. Not that prophecy was
confined to that period, but that in the
economy of God it was the period dur-
T
• ing which the prophets were the author
itative voices, dictating terms to kings, upbraiding
rulers and people, and indicating the will of God.
These prophets kept before the people the supreme
fact that the Hebrew nation was a Theocracy. It had
been that experimentally under Moses and the
judges. Then followed the monarchical system, dur
ing which the fact of the Divine Kingship was
represented by earthly kings. Finally, when that
earthly kingship had wrought itself out in history
as a manifest failure, the proper prophetic age be
gan.
It may be well to notice, in passing, that I say
nothing of the priest. He was never the interpreter
of the will of God in the economy of Israel, but
was always the servant of ritual. Even in the es
tablishment of the religious economy and the cere
mony of worship, Moses was the mouthpiece of God.
It was to him, and not to the priests, that God de
livered the pattern for worship and all the laws for
conduct.
The general tone of the prophetic books is that
of correction and prediction. A prophet is one who
speaks forth the word of God. That word is the
message of the Divine will for correction and in
struction. It has sometimes been predictive of
things to come, but always and only so far as such
prediction would affect the life of the people. These
ancient Hebrew prophets were never men who at
tempted to unveil the future to satisfy curiosity.
They always delivered a living message to their own
time. When they described the future, it was in
order that its light might fall upon and correct ex
isting attitudes.
In the study of the books of the prophets, there
fore, there are three elements for which we must
look. First, their message to their own age. In
order to understand their message to their own age,
it is important that we should first get the back
ground thereof, the conditions in which they lived.
Secondly, the things which they foretold. In con
sidering the we shall find that many of
them wore immediately fulfilled, while others still
await fulfilment.
There is, finally, in all these prophetic books, a
living message to our own age. In so much as they
spoke the will of God they uttered essential and
age-abiding principles which have application now
as surely as when they were first spoken. The local
circumstances have passed away. Many of the de
scriptions of conditions have no application to the
age in which we live. Many of the predictions are
only of interest to us as we notice how they were
spoken, and how they were fulfilled, and what ef
fect they produced. Yet in every book there is the
quantity and quality of eternal and abiding truth,
which has present application. I am inclined to
say that these ancient Hebrew prophecies are al
most more valuable today ethically than are the
writings of the apostles. There is, of course, a
sense in which the writings of the apostles are full
of value, because they reveal the meanings of things
which are to be found only in unified form in the
Gospel. When, however, we begin to deal with na
tional ethics and the conditions of the people, we
go back to the Hebrew prophets, because they, re
buking conditions which were out of harmony with
the will of God, called men back to His thn n •,
and interpreted the true law of human life.
With regard to the messages of these men to
their own age, certain things are to be remembered.
First, that the standpoint of the prophets was al-
By G. CAMPBELL MORGAN, Westminster Chapel, London, England,
Appearing Lbery Week During 1907. (Copyright American Serial “Rights Supplied Tor by The Golden SSge Publishing Co, All Rights Reser bed.)
The Golden Age for August 8, 1907.
ways that of the sovereignty of God. There are
many tones in the prophecies. There is much thun
der, and yet a great deal of tenderness One of
the greatest discoveries of my life as a student of
the Bible has been that of the love and tenderness of
these old Hebrew prophets. I remember, when I
commenced a careful study of these books, I came
to them expecting to find Ynessages rough, rugged,
magnificent, full of thunder, denunciation, force,
and fire. I found all I expected to find, but the
most wonderful discovery was that of the still, small
voice after the stern denunciation, the wooing love
note of the great Father beyond that of the warn
ing sternness of His messenger. I was almost
scorched as by fire when I read the opening part
of Zephaniah; but ere I had finished it I had lis
tened to the tenderest love song in all the Bible.
Whether by thunder or tenderness, whether in se
verity or sternness, whether of law or love, these
men always spoke from the standpoint of their con
viction of the absolute sovereignty of God. The
very word they used is indicative of the truth,
“Jehovah, before Whom I stand,” which simply
means, I speak in His name and by His authority,
and deliver His message The enthroned God was
their ultimate vision. In obedience to that they
uttered all their messages.
Notice, secondly, that their protest against things
which were contrary to the will of God was without
compromise. These men knew nothing of the word
expedient. They knew a great deal of the word
obedient. They knew nothing of policy in the de
graded sense of the word. They had but one thing
to say to men, namely, that if individually or in
corporate and national life they were not living in
submission to the will of God, they were in the
place of certain and irrevocable ruin.
Their intention was always that of bringing glory
to the name of Jehovah. They were far more anx
ious about the honor of His name than about the
welfare of Israel. Although they broke into lamen
tation and tears over the distress of Israel, the
deepest note in their pain was that Israel’s sin had
libelled the name of Jehovah. The failure of Israel
to deliver the message of God to the surrounding
nations created the deep undertone in all their
songs of sorrow. Their intention, therefore, was
always that <»f restoring the people of God to true
relation to Him in order that His name might be
glorified.
Finally, it is observable that, with varying notes
and emotions, and in differing circumstances, every
song raised by these prophets was a song c»f ho;e;
a song v.nich camo out of their profound conviction
that at last God could not be defeated, but that
His purpose of love must come to ultimate accom
plishment.
Turning to the second element of which I spoke,
the predictive, we find that in all the foretelling
of these men there is recognized, first, the failure
of the “hosen people; secondly, the coming of Mes
siah; thirdly, the restoration under Messiah of the
chosen people; and, finally, the fact that Messiah’s
kingdom must ultimately be established over the
whole earth.
One of the most important things to be remem
bered in the study of the Old Testament prophecies
; s that the Church is never seen, and, consequently,
is never referred to. I am perfectly well aware
that I his is a declaration with which many will not
be in agreement. I speak with profound respect
*or the interpretations of others; but I am con
vinced that we misinterpret these Hebrew prophe
cies when we spiritualize them or imagine that they
are fulfilled in the historic Church of Jesus Christ.
The Chui ch was a mystery, never known by the
Hebrew people. They had no conception of it. As
Paul in his writings concerning the Church dis
tinctly teaches?, if was a mystery never revealed
until the coming of Christ. Christ Himself did not
speak of His Church until He was practically re
jected by the Hebrew people. At Caesarea Philippi,
He for the first time, and that in a comprehensive
and glorious declaration, referred to His Church,
and only once again to the end of His ministry. I am
not now using the word Church in that loose and
general sense, whi?h includes all faithful souls from
Abel, but strictly in the New Testament sense. I
believe when Paul spoke of “My Gospel,” he was
referring distinctly to this truth of the Church,
which was peculiarly his. That truth never emerged
in the vision of these Old Testament prophets. They
had to do with the establishment of the kingdom
of God on this earth. While the Church of Jesus
Christ has that also as her desire for this earth,
her own peculiar mission will be fulfilled in the
heavenly places and in ages to come. To remember
that the Hebrew prophets had no vision of this
heavenly people and calling is to be delivered from
much misinterpretation of their messages.
In the prophetic writings we have sixteen books
bearing the names of sixteen men as authors. These
we usually divide into major and minor prophecies.
The major are: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and
Daniel. The rest we speak of as minor. The dis
tinction is made simply with reference to length.
It is a distinction which it would be a very happy
thing to be rid of once and for all. The terms major
and minor aie at once, as Dr. Scofield has said,
“unscientific and misleading.” If we can rid our
selves of these terms so much the better for our ap
preciaricn of the messages of the prophets. A
better division would be pre-exilic, exilic, and post
exilic; those uttered before the exile, during the
exile, and after the exile.
The question at once arises, how are we to decide
the relation of the prophecies to the exile? There
is admitted difficulty, and the tendency of recent
years has been to insist upon bringing the major
part of them to post-exilic times. In these studies
the method followed will be that of dealing with
them upon the basis of what they say themselves
concerning the times in which they were uttered.
Upon that basis the accompanying chart indicates
the dates of the prophets.
The pre-exilic prophets were: Joel, Jonah, Amos,
Hosea, Obadiah, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah,
Habakkuk and Jeremiah. The prophets of the exile
were: Daniel and Ezekiel. The post-exilic prophets
were; Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. It should be
added that Jeremiah began his prophecy before the
exile, and continued it in the early stages thereof.
The dates of Joel, Obadiah and Nahum are un
certain; that of Jonah is also disputed.
Another division might be that of separating
between the prophets of Israel and those of Judah.
The prophets of Israel were all pre-exilic—Jonah,
Amos. Hosea. The rest were’ prophets of Judah,
of whom eight were pre-exilic—Joel, Obadiah, Isa
iah, Micah, Nahum, Habbakkuk, Zephaniah, Jere
miah: two were exilic—Ezekiel and Daniel, who,
while being prophets of Judah, nevertheless spoke
to the whole nation; three were post-exilic—Haggai,
Zechariah, IS I alachi.
Reverting to the Bible order, let us conclude this
introductory lecture by a rapid survey of the whole
of the books.
Isaiah was supremely the prophet of the Theoc
racy. He declared the judgment which must fall
upon the nation which had failed to fulfil its mis
sion in the world. He nevertheless clearly foresaw
the ultimate victory of God through an appointed
Servant.
Jeremiah was Jehovah’s spokesman in the days
of darkness and disaster. Through personal suffer
ing he delivered his messages of punishment and of
promise in the days when neither were received.
In his Lamentations he voiced the suffering of the
nation as one who, by intimate relationship to Jeho
yah, felt them most acutely.
(Concluded on Page Seven.)