The Old Testament will always be of value because of its intimate connection with the New. From the purely linguistic standpoint a knowledge of the former is essential for an understanding of the latter. New Testament modes of thought and expression are inexplicable without a study of the Old. There are many passages in the New Testament taken from the Old and referring back to it which cannot be properly understood unless we examine them in their original context. But the connection is even more vital, for in a very real sense the new dispensation has its roots in the old. It is one kingdom of God that is the subject of the history in both, and the Bible as a whole can never be rightly understood until the two Testaments are comprehended in their unity and harmony, for they are joined in inseparable unity in Christ himself.
Most important of all, the Old Testament retains, and ever will retain, a unique religious value. It will ever be important in the field of doctrine. True, the New Testament is the primary source for the doctrines of Christianity, but there are some things which the New Testament takes for granted, and for which we must turn to the Old. Will the revelation of the nature and character of God contained in the Old Testament ever lose its doctrinal value?—God, a spirit, personal, with a clearly defined moral character, in his mercy condescending to enter into covenant relations with his creatures, loving man and desiring to be loved by him, his anger aroused by sin, but gracious toward the repenting sinner? Again, have those early chapters of Genesis lost their doctrinal value? Has anyone supplied a substitute for the simple "In the beginning God created heaven and earth"?
The Old Testament is of permanent religious value because of its keen insight into human nature. The Bible has been called "the family album of the Holy God"; we might compare it, rather, to a picture gallery. What a variety! Everywhere we see them flesh and blood! Why is it they impress us so? Is it not because the pictures are so true to human nature that in spite of the difference in time, place, and circumstances they may serve even us as mirrors?
The Old Testament will always deserve study from the religious standpoint, because of the ideal of character it sets before us. "It presents to our souls characters that are supremely worthy of our reverence because consciously centered in God and full of his power. It permits us to share the enthusiasm of the men who discovered the fundamentals of our religion and the character of our God. It is indispensable to complete the discipleship of Christ, because it is the creator of the mold which his soul expanded."[[24]] Its types of character may lack the finer graces, yet they are types we may do well to imitate. Will the lives of Abraham, Joseph, Samuel, Elijah, David, and many others ever lose their lessons? What sublime ideals even the Christian minister may find in the lives of the prophets!
Will we ever get beyond the moral duties which are, according to the Old Testament, obligatory upon man? Purity of thought, sincerity of motive, singleness of purpose, truthfulness, honesty, justice, generosity, love—these are some of the virtues which again and again are in the strongest language insisted upon in the pages of the Old Book. Indeed, the Old Testament emphasizes the loftiest ideals of human life and society, anticipating the time when in all the world the universal Fatherhood of God and the common brotherhood of man would be realized. In an editorial in the Expository Times, commenting upon a paper read before the First International Moral Education Congress, are found these suggestive words: "It is when the teaching of the Old Testament is simple, frank, and historical that it becomes the best text-book of ethics in the world, for it possesses these two incomparable advantages—it is full of humanity, and it is full of variety. The epics of Joseph and David, the tragedies of Elijah and Isaiah have an undying charm. And the examples are varied as they are interesting. It offers examples of almost every stage of moral development. Whatever the pupil's moral attitude, there is some Jewish hero that appeals to him. That hero's actions can be traced to their motives and followed to their consequences. He can be treated with sympathy in so far as he attains the standard of his times, and yet criticized in so far as his motives are not those which we recognize as absolute. So the pupil may learn at once to appropriate those media axiamata which fit him, and yet realize that there is something beyond and above them."[[25]]
The Old Testament is of permanent significance because of its insistence on pure and spiritual religion, and its condemnation of all cold and external formalism. These words of the prophet Isaiah imply a lofty conception of true religion: "What unto me is the multitude of your sacrifices? saith Jehovah: I have had enough of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to trample my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; new moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies—I cannot away with iniquity and the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary of bearing them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow."[[26]] And the prophetic definition of religion, "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?"[[27]] is in no wise inferior to that given in the New Testament: "Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."[[28]]
Finally, how can we estimate highly enough the devotional value of the Old Testament as illustrated, for example, in the book of Psalms? Here we have the outpourings of human souls in the closest fellowship with their God, giving without restraint expression to the most various emotions, hopes, desires, and aspirations. What other literary compositions lift us into such atmosphere of religious thought and emotion? Surely, the sweet singers enjoy a preëminence from which they can never be dethroned.
It is quite safe, therefore, to assert, that as long as human nature is what it is now the Old Testament must remain an ever-flowing fountain of living truth, able to invigorate and to restore, to purify and to refine; to ennoble and to enrich the moral and spiritual being of man. "No man," says A. W. Vernon,[[29]] "save Jesus, ever had the right to lay the Book ... aside, and he made it immortal."