The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 95

THE CHURCH BEFORE AND AFTER CHRIST

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He performed a work in those days that was intended more directly for the Church of the New Testament, which also had a different but not less important significance for the saints of the Old Covenant. This was the work of Prophecy. As Christ declares, the purpose of prophecy is to predict future things so that, the events predicted having come to pass, the Church may believe and confess that it was the Lord's work. The Old Testament often states this, and the Lord Jesus declared it to His disciples, saying: "And now I have told you, before it come to pass that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe" (John xiv. 29). And again " Now I tell you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass ye may believe that I am He" (John xiii. 19). And still more clearly: "But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them." These statements, compared with the words of Isa. xli. 23, xlii9, and xliii. 19, leave no doubt as to the design of prophecy. Not that this exhausts prophecy, or that it has no other aims; but its chief and final end is reached only when, on the ground of its fulfilment, the Church believes its God and Savior and magnifies Him in His mighty acts. But while its center of gravity is the fulfilment, i.e., in the Church of the New Testament, it was equally intended for contemporary saints. For, apart from the prophetic activities that referred solely to the people of Israel living at that time, and the prophecies fulfilled in Israel's national life, prophecy even as boldly outlining Christ yielded precious fruit for the Old Testament saints. Connected with theophanies it produced in their minds such a fixed and tangible form of the Messiah that fellowship with Him, which alone is essential to salvation, was made possible to them by anticipation, as to us by memory. Not only did this fellowship become possible at the end of the Dispensation, in Isaiah and Zacharias; Christ testifies that Abraham desired to see His day, saw it, and significance for us, so also

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glad.

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