The Expositor's Bible: The Book of DeuteronomyHarper, Andrew
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Deuteronomy
Harper, Andrew
Bible. Deuteronomy -- Commentaries
But what of erroneous teaching which acknowledges that "Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh"? To it the Old Testament parallel is
the utterance of the prophet who "speaketh in the name of Yahweh,
and the thing followeth not nor comes to pass." According to Old
Testament precept and example, that was to be left to the judgment
of time. In our day a corresponding course must be found. The case
supposed is that of teaching believed to be erroneous, but neither
fundamentally subversive of Christianity nor destructive of the
special principles of a Church. If so, earnest opposition by those
who hold the opposite view, and adequate discussion, are the true
way of meeting the case. For the rest, the final decision should be
left to experience. In time, even subsidiary error of this kind,
if important, will manifest itself by weakening spiritual life in
those who hold it; they will gradually dwindle in numbers and their
influence in the Church will die away. They begin by promising
renewed strength and insight in spiritual things, renewed energy in
the spiritual life. If that "follow not nor come to pass," when due
time has been given for any such development, then that is the thing
which the Lord hath not spoken, and it should be dealt with as the
fundamental heresy is to be dealt with. But probably by that time it
will have judged itself, and will need no judgment of men at all.
These then were the connecting links between Yahweh and His people,
and the organs by which the life of the Israelite nation was guided:
the Kingship, the Priesthood, and the Prophetic Order. The first
gave visibility to the Divine rule, and stability to national
and social life; the second secured the stability of religion,
and built up the moral life of the nation on the basis of Mosaic
law; the third secured progress and averted stagnation, both in
religion and in social and individual morals. In fact, order and
progress, the two things Positivist thinkers have set forth as
those which can alone secure health to a community, are provided
for here with a directness and success which it would be difficult
to parallel elsewhere. When we remember how small, how obscure,
and how uncivilised the people was to whom this scheme of things
was given, and how little their surroundings or circumstances were
calculated to suggest such far-reaching provisions, we see that
the source of it all was the Revelation of the Divine character
given by Moses. Yahweh as revealed through him did not permit His
worshippers to believe that they could, at one moment, receive all
that was to be known about Him. They were taught to found their
conduct and their polity upon what they did know, and to be eagerly
on the watch for that which might be revealed at new crises of their
history. Now that teaching finds its most complete expression in
the laws concerning the three institutions we have been reviewing.
Behind all healthy national life and all stable institutions there
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