The Literature and History of New Testament Times. J. Gresham Machen
conception. In the synagogues, one proposition needed first to be proved, "This Jesus … is the Christ." Acts 17:3. If that were proved, then the rest would follow. The Jews knew that the Messiah was Lord and Master. Identify Jesus with him, and all the lofty claims of Jesus would be substantiated. How the identity was established may be observed in the speech of Peter on the day of Pentecost, or in the speech of Paul at Pisidian Antioch. Acts 13:16–43.
It will be remembered that the synagogues attracted not merely Jews but also Gentiles. The Gentile "God-fearers," as well as the Jews, were acquainted with the Messianic hope. Even the Gentile mission, therefore, was prepared for by the prophets of Israel.
3. THE PERMANENT VALUE OF PROPHECY
The appeal to prophecy, however, was not merely valuable to the early Church. It is of abiding worth. It represents Jesus as the culmination of a divine purpose. The hope of Israel was in itself a proof of revelation, because it was so unlike the religious conceptions of other nations. The covenant people, the righteous king, the living God, the world-wide mission—that is the glory of Israel. The promise is itself a proof. But still more the fulfillment. The fulfillment was an unfolding. Wonderful correspondence in detail—and far more wonderful the correspondence of the whole! The promise was manifold. Sometimes the Messiah is in the foreground. Sometimes he is out of sight. Sometimes there is a human king, sometimes Jehovah himself coming to judgment; sometimes a kingdom, sometimes a new covenant in the heart; sometimes a fruitful Canaan, sometimes a new heaven and a new earth. But manifold though the promise, Christ is the fulfillment of it all. "How many soever be the promises of God," in Christ is the yea. II Cor. 1:20. There is the wonder. In Christ the apparent contradictions of the promise become glorious unity, in Christ the deeper mysteries of the promise are revealed. Christ the keystone of the arch! Christ the culmination of a divine plan! That is the witness of the prophets. It is a witness worth having.
4. THE MESSIANIC HOPE OF LATER JUDAISM
After the close of the Old Testament, the promise did not die. It was preserved in the Scriptures. It continued to be the life of the Jewish nation. But it was not only preserved. It was also interpreted. Some of the interpretation was false, but much of it was true. The Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament promise is worthy of attention. What did the Jews of the first century mean by the Messiah, and what did they mean by the Messianic age?
In the first place, they retained the hope of a king of David's line—a human king who should conquer the enemies of Israel. When it was held in a one-sided form this was a dangerous hope. It led logically to materialistic conceptions of the kingdom of God and to political unrest. It led to the effort of the Jews to take Jesus by force and make him a king. John 6:15. It led to the quarrel of the disciples about the chief places in the kingdom. Matt. 18:1–4; Mark 9:33–35; Luke 9:46,47. This conception of the Messiah had to be corrected by Jesus. "My kingdom is not of this world." John 18:36.
Yet even where the Messiah was conceived of as an earthly ruler, the spiritual hope was by no means always and altogether lost. The "Psalms of Solomon," for example, Pharisaic psalms of the first century before Christ, though they look for an earthly ruler, picture him as one who shall rule in righteousness. "And a righteous king and taught of God is he that reigneth over them; And there shall be no iniquity in his days in their midst, for all shall be holy and their king is the Lord Messiah" (Ps. Sol. xvii, 35, 36. See Ryle and James, "Psalms of the Pharisees," especially pp. 137–147). No iniquity in the days of the Messiah! That is true understanding of the Old Testament, even joined with the political ideal.
In the second place, however, the Messianic age is sometimes in later Judaism conceived of as purely supernatural. The Messiah is not an earthly ruler, merely helped by God, but himself a heavenly being, a preëxistent "Son of Man," judge of all the earth. The Messianic age is ushered in not by human warfare, but by a mighty catastrophic act of God. Not a liberated Canaan is here the ideal, but a new heaven and a new earth.
This transcendental, supernaturalistic form of the Messianic hope appears in the "Book of Enoch" and other "apocalypses." Its details are fantastic, but it was by no means altogether wrong. In many respects it was a correct interpretation of the divine promise. The new heavens and the new earth are derived from Isa. 65:17. The doctrine of the two ages was accepted by Jesus and by Paul—for example Matt. 12:32; Gal. 1:4; Eph. 1:21. The heavenly "Son of Man" goes back to Dan. 7:13,14. The Book of Enoch was not altogether wrong. Its use of the title "Son of Man" prepared for the title which Jesus used.
Finally, the Messianic hope was held in a pure and lofty form by the "poor of the land"—simple folk like those who appear in the first two chapters of Luke. In the hymns of Mary and Zacharias and Simeon, purely political and materialistic conceptions are in the background, and the speculations of the apocalypses do not appear. The highest elements of prophecy are made prominent. "For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples; a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel." Luke 2:30–32. In those circles, the hope of Israel burned still and pure.
Later Judaism thus preserved the manifoldness of prophecy. There was exaggeration and there was one-sidedness; but in Judaism as a whole the promise was preserved. One element at most was forgotten—the suffering servant and his sacrificial death. The death of the Messiah was no easy conception. The disciples had difficulty with it. When Peter heard of it, he took Jesus, and began to rebuke him. Matt. 16:22. The lesson was not easy, but it had to be learned. And it was worth learning. The cross is the heart of the gospel.
Thus in Jesus nothing was left out, except what was false. The whole promise was preserved. The revealer of God, the ruler of the kingdom, the great high priest, the human deliverer, the divine Lord—these are the elements of the promise. They find their union in Christ. Leave one out, and the promise is mutilated. Such mutilation is popular to-day. The whole Christ seems too wonderful. But the Church can be satisfied with nothing less.
In the Library.—Beecher, "The Prophets and the Promise," pp. 173–420.
LESSON VII
THE BOOK OF THE ACTS
The teaching of the lesson may be begun with some very simple questions. If rightly put, they will open up a fresh way of looking at a New Testament book. The way will thus be prepared for considering the deeper elements of the lesson. If interest can be aroused in the book itself, the contents of the book, in the lessons which follow, will be studied with much livelier attention.
1. AUTHORSHIP
Who wrote the book of The Acts? How do you know? The former question will probably be answered without difficulty, but the latter may reveal difference of opinion. Many of the students will know that The Acts was written by the same man as the Gospel of Luke. But that does not settle the question. How do you know that Luke was written by Luke? The name does not occur in the Gospel itself. The title, "According to Luke," was probably added later. So, in order to determine the authorship both of Luke and of The Acts, recourse must be had to Christian tradition.
Fortunately, however, tradition in this case is quite unimpeachable.
In the first place, although the author of The Acts is not named in the book, yet the book is not an anonymous work. Undoubtedly the name of the author was known from the beginning. For the book is dedicated to an individual, Theophilus. Evidently Theophilus knew who the author was. Information about the author could thus be had from the start. If, therefore, Luke did not really write The Acts, some one has removed the name of the true author and substituted "Luke" in place of it. That is an exceedingly unlikely supposition.
In the second place, it is evident quite independently of any tradition that