Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 485

Chap.

THE NEW TESTAMENT

II]

Our

of US, is here wanting. fore,

does not

lie

461

fixed point of departure, there-

in the Neiv, but in the

The Old Testament

is

Old, Testament.

to us the fixed point of support,

and the

New

cannot legitimate itself other than as the complement and crown of the Old, postulated by the Old, assumed and prophesied by Christ, actually come, and by the continuity of faith accepted in the

Church

of Christ.

A

certain paral-

with the standing of the authority of the Old Testament Even Jesus' appearance is here not to be denied. though Jesus' decisive witness concerning the Scripture then in existence lays for us the firmest objective foundation on which its authority rests, it may nevertheless not be lost from sight that respect for this authority did not originate lel

Ijefore

by means of Jesus' coming, but was already prevaHe was manifest in the flesh. Christ had merely to connect Himself with what existed, and put His seal to an authority that was universally recognized. The authority of the Scripture of the Old Covenant arose of itself even as It was, as Jesus found it, the that of the New Testament. result of organic factors which had worked in upon the people of God in the Old Dispensation an authority which only gradually had been firmly established, and did not maintain itself in an absolute sense, except through conflict and strife, over against the pretension of the Apocrypha and

first

lent before

;

other influential writings, but at length prevailed univer-

bounded domain. As a parallel to the New Testament this is of value it that such an authority can establish shows to us, because itself gradually by psychical factors and in organic connection with the life of the people of God, and in such a way

sally within a sharply rise of the

authority of the

that the Christ ratifies

and valid authority.

it

afterwards as an entirely lawful

From

this the possibility also is evi-

dent that in a proper way, without outward legitimation, such an authority may be imposed as of itself, and that afterwards it can appear to have been entirely lawfully established. Thus there is nothing strange in it, that in a similarly

unmarked way the Scripture

gradually acquired the authority which

of the it

New

Testament

has since exercised.

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