This brief survey has necessarily been occupied for the most part with the developments of recent research. But in these years as in previous periods the Old Testament has been the subject of much searching, preaching and writing which has taken little or no account of changes in criticism, or, indeed, of any criticism at all; but have taken the narratives as they found them, and, as far as authorship has been concerned, have made the assumptions which seemed easiest and most edifying. Such work, too, is most valuable. The spiritual life which speaks to us through the Hebrew Scriptures is so full of energy, variety, and truth that even the simplest methods of treatment yield great results. These results, moreover, have sometimes a special quality which is absent from more studious exposition. Even after many centuries the inspired books are like rich virgin soil which yield a harvest even to the crudest methods of cultivation. Thus the scribes of our day, instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven, are still bringing out of their treasures things new and old; and both alike minister to the coming of the Kingdom, both the new and the old, both the influence of ancient association and venerable tradition, and the new life and power and hope that spring to birth in dawning light of a new day of the Lord.
"At last, but yet the night had memories
Sad in their sweetness, noble in their pain,
Which, looking backward half regretfully
In longing day-dreams oft we live again.
At last, but this new day, that slowly dawns,
Shall satisfy with its meridian fires
Alike the longing born of fond regret
And deeper yearnings that our hope inspires."
That the Old Testament will still hold its place of power in any new dispensation is guaranteed by its significance for Christ and His Gospel. As Prof. G. A. Smith has said in a work which states the religious position in the light of recent Biblical study,[33] Christ accepted the history recorded in the Old Testament "as the preparation for Himself, and taught His disciples to find Him in it. He used it to justify His mission and to illuminate the mystery of His Cross.... Above all, He fed His own soul with its contents, and in the great crises of His life sustained Himself upon it as upon the living and sovereign Word of God. These are the highest external proofs—if indeed we can call them external—for the abiding validity of the Old Testament in the life and doctrine of Christ's Church. What was indispensable to the Redeemer must always be indispensable to the redeemed."
W. H. Bennett.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE
EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
NEW TESTAMENT
By Walter F. Adeney, M. A.
Professor of New Testament Exegesis at Lancashire College,
Manchester
I.—CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EXPOSITION