Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

GENESIS
one and the same event-the death of Christ on the Cross
(although the Jewish institution was permitted to remain
as a social and civil institution some forty years longer,
that is, down to the Destruction of Jerusalem and the
dispersion of its people by the Roman armies, A.D. 70).
(Cf. John 1:17, Gal. 3:23-29, 2 Cor. 3:1-11, Col. 2:13-
15, and especially the Epistle to the Hebrews, chs. 7, 8, 9,
lo). Under the Christian System all Christians are priests
unto God, and Christ is their High Priest (1 Pet. 2: 5, 9;
Rev. 5:10, Rom. 12:1-2, 8:34; Heb. 2:17, also chs. 3, Y,
7; 1 Tim. 2:5, 1 John 2:1, etc.) . It will be recalled that
Alexander Campbell referred to the Patriarchal Dispensa-
tion as the starlight age, to the Jewish Dispensation as the
moonlight age, to the special ministry of John the Im-
merser (to the Jewish nation) as the twilight age, and to
the present or Christian Dispensation (which may rightly
be designated also the Dispensation of the Holy Spirit) as
the sunlight age, of the unfolding of the divine Plan of
Redemption. These successive “ages,” therefore, embrace
the successive stages of the revelation of true religion, as
set forth in the Scriptures. Refusal to recognize this funda-
mental unity of the Bible as a whole can result only in
confusion, presumption, and, ultimately, eternal separa-
tion from God and all good (2 Thess. 1 :7-10).
The subject matter of the Epistle to the Hebrews
deals with the superiority of Christianity to Judaism, of
the New Covenant to the Old Covenant (cf. Jer. 31:31-34,
Heb., ch. 8). This is proved by the superiority of Christ,
the Son of God, ,to angels, to Moses, to the Levitical priest-
hood, etc. Judaizers, in,and out of the church, were con-
tending, it seems, that if Jesus was truly Messiah, as High
Priest He must“ have sprung from the tribe of Levi,
because that tribe alone had been set apart as Israel’s priest-
hood. But, said they, Jesus actually hailed from the tribe
of Judah, and. this fact disqualified Him for the priestly
office. The writer of the Epistle, replying to this argu-
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