A Tour of the Missions: Observations and ConclusionsStrong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
A Tour of the Missions: Observations and Conclusions
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
East Asia -- Description and travel; Missions
It is needless to multiply instances of this failure to interpret the
Old Testament aright. Let me call attention to the effect of this method
upon the interpretation of the New Testament, for the authority of the
New Testament is also undermined. The system of typical interpretation,
which sees in Christ the reality prefigured in Old Testament shadows, is
discredited as unscientific. The whole Epistle to the Hebrews is thrown
out, as a poetical clothing of "the man of Nazareth" with the fading
glories of an outworn worship. The idea that the high priest of old who
entered the Holy of Holies once a year not without blood, and the whole
Jewish system of which this formed the central feature, were a divinely
ordered prefiguration of Christ's atoning sacrifice for the sins of
men--this idea is called a mere human addition to historical truth.
Christ is no longer our great High Priest. His priesthood is mere
metaphor, without divine warrant or authority. He is not our Prophet,
nor our King, for his prophecies are not fulfilled, and his kingdom is
only that of a moral teacher and example. And all this, in spite of the
fact that the Epistle to the Hebrews bears upon its front the
declaration that "God, who in past times spoke to the fathers through
the prophets, has in these last days spoken through his Son," whom this
same Epistle then proceeds to describe as the effulgence of God's glory
and the very image of his substance, the Creator, Upholder, and
Redeemer of the world, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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