DOCTRINAL STUDY
The last section has brought us to this stage. The fact that we " know the Truth " and many of the passages which demonstrate its principles without even beginning to follow the course here advocated, might be judged a sufficient reason for by-passing the rather devious route it follows, and getting straight to the point with a direct use of one or other of the summaries of gospel evidence which we possess.8 The reasons against this are compelling, and have been given in this chapter and the last. Though we may in fact have given lectures, and even be obliged to give some still, before such a large approach to the Scriptures shall have been completed, we labour under difficulties until it has. A comprehensive survey of the Bible, an appreciation of the preacher's message as a unity, we ought to have so that individual doctrines can take their place in the picture.

Largely, of course, the doctrines unfold themselves as we read. The historical beginning is also the logical beginning, and the picture of our fallen forefather the essential premise for the outworking of the plan of redemption. " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin."9 Two great lines of promise diverge from this point: the literal promise of the Seed who shall come-from the woman, 10 from Abraham, 11 from David12-and destroy the power of sin, and make his enemies the footstool of his feet; 13; and the typical promise embodied in the covering provided by God, 14 in the acceptable bloods of Abel's offering and Abel himself, 15 and in the ritual ordinances of Moses' Law, summed up in " It is the blood which maketh atonement for the soul"" and pointing to the blood which speaketh better things than that of Abel.17

Both promises unfold in their development the principles of God's workings with men. The " seed " theme presents to us men of faith, who bow to the word of God and go where in their self-will they would not have gone, doing the humanly silly or suicidal things which Hebrews18 summarizes for us, in token of their utter trust in that which God had set before them. Against all human counsel they offered blood sacrifice, 19 built an Ark on dry land with a cloudless sky above, 20 left a prosperous livelihood to go into the unknown, arid accepted assurances of offspring they were past begetting21, and died in faith.

The " sacrifice " theme shows us faith also; for how could a nation send all its males three times in a year to appear before the Lord unless it trusted in His deliverances? 22 It shows us plainly, also, the conditions of approach before God. A grim symbol of the cutting off of the flesh became the indispensable initiation into God's presence for any man, 23 and the Holy of Holies with its screening veil and a scrupulously clean High Priest approaching, with blood, alone into the Lord's holy presence, show how truly God will be sanctified in them that come nigh Him. Some powerful examples point the lesson.24

The Kingdom gives substance to the promise of the Seed, and becomes a foretaste of the ultimate theocracy for the whole earth. The chosen nation is given, and burks, the task of preserving by word and deed the purity of the Lord's counsel. In all its actions there is example, 25 and in the circumstances of its disruption there come the clearer promises of him who will establish it anew and carry the work of God to its completion.26 Much more than this, much more, even within this, than we can display, does the Old Testament set out of the progress of God's purpose, but an expansion of this is the doctrinal picture which its books ought to present to us.

The New Testament gathers together the promises of the Old. The Seed and the Offering are fulfilled in Christ. The King of Israel appears and preaches a kingdom they will not have. In their rejection of him he is lifted up and displayed as a Saviour to all the world, and his apostles carry his message of salvation, gathering by baptism those who wait together for his return. The faith of Abraham becomes the pattern of all who follow Jesus in seeking the will of God. The blood of the Covenant becomes the token of the opening of a new way into God's holy presence for those who forsake the uncleanness of the flesh and assent to the symbol of its putting off on the Cross. The kingdom which the Jews rejected becomes, first, the high calling of the saints in Jesus in this day, 27 and, second, the great inheritance to be realized at the time of his coming for which they look. This is but a paltry selection of items from the New Testament presentation of the work of Jesus, and it is given only to indicate the continuity of God's purpose which our doctrinal study must never forget. Our preaching, to repeat an earlier point, is not of isolated doctrines, but of the truth of the Way of Life.

Individual doctrines must be studied, none the less. Great themes such as those already included in this survey need to be mastered, and our knowledge systematized. The " seed" promises need to be collected and collated (not necessarily for a lecture on that topic, but as a ready store for many lectures); the broad principles of the Mosaic system of sacrifice; the wide confirmation of Genesis' pronouncement about the nature of our race throughout the scriptures ;28 the principles of the first kingdom of God and the essentials of Jewish history, with the promises of the nation's restoration ;29 the Old Testament expectation of the Messiah and his mission ; in the New Testament, the teaching of Jesus and the apostles on the kingdom of God; on the meaning of salvation in Christ and on baptism ; on the return of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead; on the duties and privileges of the Christian life : the relevant material for all these things needs to be marshalled. Particular attention should be given to the use of certain fundamental terms in all their occurrences, such as " Faith " and " Believe"; " Repentance " and " Repent " (taking note of two different words so rendered in the A.V. with quite different uses); " Salvation " and " Save "; " Atonement " in the Old Testament (and its affinity with " Mercy Seat " there and " Propitiation " in the New); " Sanctification " and " Holy "; " Cross" and "Crucify" in the Gospels, Acts and Letters of Paul; and many others whose significance will appear as they are repeatedly encountered.

A comment is needed here. The work of Jesus is rooted in the Old Testament, and a special study of that part of the Word of God-one of the distinguishing marks of our body is imperative for a full appreciation of it; and the work of Jesus is developed, and presented to us in fashions both theological and practical, in the later books of the New Testament. These, therefore, must always be invaluable in expounding the purpose of God in him. But, always, it is the work of Jesus which is central. " All the promises of God are in him Yea and Amen."30 Yet we do not always, in our preaching, give his life and his words the pre-eminence they deserve. There is an understandable reason for this: the Epistles, particularly, face the same problem as we face- to present Jesus as the Truth in the face of a hostile or indifferent world, or an argumentative Church-and the solutions of that problem which they show to us are there, ready to hand. It is quite proper that we should use them, freely and gladly. Yet they themselves start with Jesus as he was and is; much of the doctrinal truth they expound finds its origin in what he said. No respect is too high to be paid to that; no attention too great to be given to it. We have Jesus's words on our own nature without him, on his relationship to God, on the way of salvation, the promise of his return, and the establishment of the kingdom. We have Jesus's life and deeds, his practical counsel and his living example, to set the standard for the acceptable life. These things are the bed-rock foundation of everything else which is said: they should underlie everything we say also.