Abraham had the gospel of the Son of God. The apostle says that the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen, preached before the gospel unto Abraham. Gal. iii, 8.
Paul testifies of the Israelites in the wilderness, that they “were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them; and that Rock was Christ.” 1 Cor. x, 2-4. The gospel was preached to the children of Israel in the wilderness. The apostle says, “Unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them; but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” Heb. iv, 2.
Moses and the believing Jews had the faith and hope of the gospel. Through the blood of the sacrificial offerings, they saw Christ, and by faith embraced him. Their hopes of the future life were not in the law, but in Christ.
“The law,” says Paul, “having a shadow of good things to come.” The typical system is but the shadow. The good things, of which Christ as a sacrifice and mediator is the center, are the body that casts its shadow back into the Jewish age. The bleeding sacrifices of the legal system were but the shadow; Christ, bleeding on the cross, was the great reality. Every bleeding sacrifice offered by the Jews, understandingly and in faith, was as acceptable in the sight of Heaven as what Christians may do in showing their faith in the sufferings, death, and resurrection of Christ, in baptism and the Lord’s supper. The one was done in the faith and hope of redemption through the blood of the Son of God, as verily as the other may be. The gospel dispensation, which is the dispensation of the good news of redemption through Christ, has been six thousand years long.
The dispensation of the law of God is longer than that of the gospel. It commenced before the fall, or there could not have been in the justice of God any such thing as the fall. It existed as early as there were created intelligences subject to the government of the Creator. It covers all time, and extends to the future, running parallel with the eternity of God’s moral government. Angels fell, therefore were on probation. They, being on probation, were consequently amenable to law. In the absence of law, they could not be on probation, therefore, could not fall. The same may be said of Adam and Eve in Eden.
The ten commandments are adapted to fallen beings. As worded in the sacred Scriptures given to man in his fallen state, they were not adapted to the condition of holy angels, nor to man in his holy estate in Eden. But the two grand principles of God’s moral government did exist before the fall, in the form of law. These are given in the Old Testament, and are quoted by Christ in the New, as the two great commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matt. xxii, 37-40. Compare Deut. vi, 5; Lev. xix, 18.
These two commandments require supreme love to the Creator, and love to fellow-creatures equal to that bestowed upon one’s self. Angels could do no more than these require. Adam could do no more. We can do no more. The two great commandments embrace all that is required by the ten precepts of the decalogue. They are the grand circle inside of which is the will of God to man. No precept, and no principle, of the Book of God, extends beyond this circle.
Soon after the fall, we see this circle in ten parts. The two principles of God’s moral government are seen in ten precepts, worded to meet man’s fallen condition. Love to God is taught in the first four commandments, and love to our fellow-man is taught in the last six. The prophets of the Lord, the Son of God, and the apostles of Jesus, have all spoken in harmony with the ten precepts of the law of Jehovah. The whole duty of man, says Solomon, is to fear God and keep his commandments.
