Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| The Prophets Bore Witness to Christ and Foretold Many Things Concerning Him.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
28. The Prophets Bore
Witness to Christ and Foretold Many Things Concerning Him.
“He came for a witness that He might bear witness
of the light, that all through Him might believe.”4760
Some of the dissenters from the
Church’s doctrine, men who profess to believe in Christ, have
desired another being, as indeed their system requires, besides the
Creator, and hence cannot allow His coming to the world to have been
foretold by the prophets.4761
| 4761 The Old Testament
belongs to the Creator, the Demiurge. | They
therefore endeavour to get rid of the testimonies of the prophets about
Christ, and say that the Son of God has no need of witnesses, but that
He brings with Him His own evidence, partly in the sound words full of
power which He proclaimed and partly in the wonderful works He did,
which were sufficient at once to convince any one whatever. Then
they say: If Moses is believed on account of his word and his
works, and has no need of any witnesses to announce him beforehand, and
if the prophets were received, every one of them, by these people, as
messengers from God, how should not one who is much greater than Moses
and the prophets accomplish His mission and benefit the human race,
without prophets to bear witness about Him? They regard it as
superfluous that He should have been foretold by the prophets, since
the prophets were concerned, as these opponents would say, that those
who believed in Christ should not receive Him as a new God, and
therefore did what they could to bring them to that same God whom Moses
and the prophets taught before Jesus. To this we must say that as
there are many causes which may lead men to believe, since men who are
not moved by one argument may be by another, so God is able to provide
for men a number of occasions, any of which may cause their minds to
open to the truth that God, who is over all, has taken on Himself human
nature. It is manifest to all, how some are brought by the
prophetic writings to the admiration of Christ. They are
astounded at the voices of so many prophets before Him, which establish
the place of His birth, the country of His upbringing, the power of His
teaching, His working of wonderful works, and His human passion brought
to a close by His resurrection. We must notice, too, that
Christ’s stupendous acts of power were able to bring to the faith
those of Christ’s own time, but that they lost their
demonstrative force with the lapse of years and began to be regarded as
mythical. Greater evidential value than that of the miracles then
performed attaches to the comparison which we now make between these
miracles and the prophecy of them; this makes it impossible for the
student to cast any doubt on the former. The prophetic
testimonies do not declare merely the advent of the Messiah; it is by
no means the case that they teach this and nothing else. They
teach a great deal of theology. The relation of the Father to the
Son and of the Son to the Father may be learned not less from what the
prophets announce about Christ, than from the Apostles narrating the
splendours of the Son of God. A parallel case, which we may
venture to adduce, is that of the martyrs, who were honoured by the
witness they bore Him, and by no means conferred any favour on Him by
their witnessing for the Son of God. And how is it if, as many of
Christ’s true disciples were honoured by having thus to witness
for Him, so the prophets received
from God as their special gift that of understanding about Christ and
announcing Him before, and that they taught not only those living after
Christ’s advent how they should regard the Son of God, but those
also who lived in the generations before Him? As he who in these
times does not know the Son has not the Father either,4762
so also we are to understand it was in these
earlier times. Hence “Abraham rejoiced to see the day of
Christ, and he saw it and was glad.”4763
He, therefore, who declares that they
are not to testify about Christ is seeking to deprive the chorus of the
prophets of the greatest gift they have; for what office of equal
importance would be left to prophecy, inspired as it is by the Holy
Spirit, if all connection with the economy of our Lord and Master were
taken away from it? For as these have their faith well ordered
who approach the God of the universe through Mediator and High-Priest
and Paraclete, and as his religion is a halting one who does not go in
through the door to the Father, so also in the case of men of old
time. Their religion was sanctified and made acceptable to God by
their knowledge and faith and expectation of Christ. For we have
observed that God declares Himself to be a witness and exhorts them all
to declare the same about Christ, and to be imitators of Him, bearing
witness of Him to all who require it. For he says,4764
“Be witnesses for Me, and I am
witness, saith the Lord God, and My servant whom I have
chosen.” Now every one who bears witness to the truth,
whether he support it by words or deeds, or in whatever way, may
properly be called a witness (martyr); but it has come to be the custom
of the brotherhood, since they are struck with admiration of those who
have contended to the death for truth and valour, to keep the name of
martyr more properly for those who have borne witness to the mystery of
godliness by shedding their blood for it. The Saviour gives the
name of martyr to every one who bears witness to the truth He declares;
thus at the Ascension He says to His disciples:4765
“You shall be my witnesses in
Jerusalem and in Judæa and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts
of the earth.” The leper who was cleansed4766
had still to bring the gift which Moses
commanded for a testimony to those who did not believe in the
Christ. In the same way the martyrs bear witness for a testimony
to the unbelieving, and so do all the saints whose deeds shine before
men. They spend their life rejoicing in the cross of Christ and
bearing witness to the true light.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
