The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 91

ORGANIC AND INDIVIDUAL

51

completed; far above the succession of moments, the course of

and the development of circumstances. Here lies the diffiThis eternal work must be brought to a temporal world, to a culty. race which is in process of development; hence that work must make history, increasing like a plant, growing, blossoming, and years,

bearing

salvation, If it

be no

And

fruit.

revelation,

and and

this history

must include a time

oi preparation,

lastly of filling the earth with the streams of grace,

blessing.

did not relate to

difficulty

;

man

but when

it

but to irrational beings, there would its course man was already in

began

the world, and as the ages passed the stream of humanity broadened.

Hence the important question: Whether the generations

that lived during the long period of preparation before Christ, in

whom

the work of re-creation was finally revealed, were partakers

of its blessings?

The Scripture answers affirmatively. In the ages before Christ God's elect shared the blessings of the work of re-creation. Abel and Enoch, Noah and Abraham, Moses and David, Isaiah and Daniel were saved by the same faith as Peter, Paul, Luther, and Calvin.

The Covenant

of Grace, altho

a time connected with the national Paradise.

The

theologians of the

life

made with Abraham and for of Israel, existed already in

Reformed churches have

clearly

unfolded the truth, that God's elect of both Dispensations entered the same gate of righteousness and walked the same way of salva-

which they still walk to the marriage-supper of the Lamb. But how could Abraham, living so many years before Christ, in whom alone grace and truth have been revealed, have his faith accounted unto him for righteousness, so that he saw the day of Jesus and was glad? This difficulty has confused many minds regarding the Old and New Dispensations, and causes many vainly to ask How could there be any saving operation of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament if He were poured out only on Pentecost? The answer is found in the almost unsearchable work of the Holy Spirit, whereby, on the one hand. He brought into the history of our race that eternal salvation already finished and complete which must run through the periods of preparation, revelation, and fruit-bearing; and whereby, on the other hand, during the preparatory period, this very preparation was made the means, through wondrous grace, of saving souls even before the Incarnation of the Word. tion

:

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