Systematic Theology (Volume 2 of 3)

by Augustus Hopkins Strong

C. Judgment—Repeated divine chastisements for idolatry culminated in the overthrow of the kingdom, and the captivity of the Jews. The exile had two principal effects: (a) religious,—in giving monotheism firm root in the heart of the people, and in leading to the establishment of the synagogue-system, by which monotheism was thereafter preserved and propagated; (b) civil,—in converting the Jews from an agricultural to a trading people, scattering them among all nations, and finally imbuing them with the spirit of Roman law and organization.

Thus a people was made ready to receive the gospel and to propagate it throughout the world, at the very time when the world had become conscious of its needs, and, through its greatest philosophers and poets, was expressing its longings for deliverance.

At the junction of Europe, Asia, and Africa, there lay a little land through which passed all the caravan-routes from the East to the West. Palestine was “the eye of the world.” The Hebrews throughout the Roman world were “the greater Palestine of the Dispersion.” The scattering of the Jews through all lands had prepared a monotheistic starting point for the gospel in every heathen city. Jewish synagogues had prepared places of assembly for the hearing of the gospel. The Greek language—the universal literary language of the world—had prepared a medium in which that gospel could be spoken. “Cæsar had unified the Latin West, as Alexander the Greek East”; and universal peace, together with Roman roads and Roman law, made it possible for that gospel, when once it had got a foothold, to spread itself to the ends of the earth. The first dawn of missionary enterprise appears among the proselyting Jews before Christ's time. Christianity laid hold of this proselyting spirit, and sanctified it, to conquer the world to the faith of Christ.

Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 2:9, 10—“In his great expedition across the Hellespont, Paul reversed the course which Alexander took, and carried the gospel into Europe to the centres of the old Greek culture.” In all these preparations we see many lines converging to one result, in a manner inexplicable, unless we take them as proofs of the wisdom and power of God preparing the way for the kingdom of his Son; and all this in spite of the fact that “a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Rom. 11:25). James Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, 15—“Israel now instructs the world in the Worship of Mammon, after having once taught it the knowledge of God.”

On Judaism, as a preparation for Christ, see Döllinger, Gentile and Jew, 2:291-419; Martensen, Dogmatics, 224-236; Hengstenberg, Christology of the O. T.; Smith, Prophecy a Preparation for Christ; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 458-485; Fairbairn, Typology; MacWhorter, Jahveh Christ; Kurtz, Christliche Religionslehre, 114; Edwards' History of Redemption, in Works, 1:297-395; Walker, Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation; Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, 1:1-37; Luthardt, Fundamental Truths, 257-281; Schaff, Hist. Christian Ch., 1:32-49; Butler's Analogy, Bohn's ed., 228-238; Bushnell, Vicarious Sac., 63-66; Max Müller, Science of Language, 2:443; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:463-485; Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 47-73.

Section II.—The Person Of Christ.

The redemption of mankind from sin was to be effected through a Mediator who should unite in himself both the human nature and the divine, in order that he might reconcile God to man and man to God. To facilitate an understanding of the Scriptural doctrine under consideration, it will be desirable at the outset to present a brief historical survey of views respecting the Person of Christ.

In the history of doctrine, as we have seen, beliefs held in solution at the beginning are only gradually precipitated and crystallized into definite formulas. The first question which Christians naturally asked themselves was “What think ye of the Christ” (Mat 22:42); then his relation to the Father; then, in due succession, the nature of sin, of atonement, of justification, of regeneration. Connecting these questions with the names of the great leaders who sought respectively to answer them, we have: 1. the Person of Christ, treated by Gregory Nazianzen (328); 2. the Trinity, by Athanasius (325-373); 3. Sin, by Augustine (353-430); 4. Atonement, by Anselm (1033-1109); 5. Justification by faith, by Luther (1485-1560); 6. Regeneration, by John Wesley (1703-1791);—six weekdays of theology, leaving only a seventh, for the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, which may be the work of our age. John 10:36—“him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world”—hints at some mysterious process by which the Son was prepared for his mission. Athanasius: “If the Word of God is in the world, as in a body, what is there strange in affirming that he has also entered into humanity?” This is the natural end of evolution from lower to higher. See Medd, Bampton Lectures for 1882, on The One Mediator: The Operation of the Son of God in Nature and in Grace; Orr, God's Image in Man.