Читать книгу The Second Death and the Restitution of All Things - Andrew Jukes - Страница 9

veil as well as a revelation; and as such there could not but be apparent contradiction. The same is true of Scripture, that is, the written word, which like Nature has gone through six days of change, and like Christ's flesh has grown in wisdom and stature here. Throughout it is a veil while it is a revelation; and therefore, like Nature, Providence, and the flesh of Christ, it is and must be open to the same reproach, not only of inconsistency, but of setting forth unworthy and even untrue statements of God. For indeed Scripture is a veil, which when taken in the letter, that is, as it appears to sense, makes out God to be just as far from what He really is as Nature and Providence seem to make Him; and yet all the while it reveals Him also, as nothing else has ever revealed Him. For though in Christ's flesh the revelation is complete spite of the veil, its very completeness and compactness keep us from seeing the various parts, which are set before us in Holy Scripture piecemeal,¹ and in a way that neither Nature nor Providence at present shew Him to us. For the law and the prophets tell us more of God and of His purposes, as to the restitution of all things and the promised times of rest and sabbath, than Nature yet declares to our present understanding; though indeed Nature may be, and probably is, saying far more to us than any mere human eye or ear has yet apprehended. Now if Nature and Providence, Christ's flesh and Scripture, have all this same characteristic peculiarity of being veils as well as revelations, and are therefore open to the charge of inconsistency, as read by sense, seeming to declare what is opposed to fact, may we not conclude that they have all come from the same Hand, especially when it is seen that the apparent contradictions, which are found in any of these revelations, like the tabernacle veil, invariably cover some deeper truth, which cannot safely be expressed, to fallen men at least, in any other way.

(3) The deeper question, why God has thus revealed Himself should not be passed by; for it opens the heart of God. God alone of all teachers has had two methods, law and gospel, flesh and spirit,— one working where we are, the other to bring us in rest where He is, — one to be done away, the other to abide,²— which at least looks like inconsistency. The reason is that God is love, and that in no other way could He ever have reached us where we were, or brought us where He is. God therefore was willing to seem inconsistent, and for awhile to come into man's likeness, to bring man back to His likeness. Here is the reason for law before gospel,