41. Representative Historical Scenes

Representative Historical Scenes

Chapter 40

History is in another sense a commentary upon scripture, in that truth and error are embodied, incarnated in living examples, so as to show their respective beauty and deformity, both doctrinal teaching and ethical practice thus being vivid by practical illustration. Whatever God has made conspicuous by way of event, or transaction, or occurrence, or in example, should have corresponding prominence in our thought, imagination and memory; and a few leading transactions will be found conveying centers of Bible truth, supreme in interest and importance.

Certain memorable events are bold historic landmarks that both define and divide the territory of the ages; and it is well to make our own maps of Time with those events in their proper location, as converging and radiating centers. In the following list, capitals are used at the beginning of each paragraph, to indicate those of primary importance, and those that immediately succeed in the paragraph represent the secondary under the same class.

Creation—Six successive days of creative energy: last of all man, woman; Eden and Tree of Life, etc. The Fall—Expulsion from Eden. First recorded sacrifice—first murder. Enoch’s Translation. The Deluge—Ark building—first world-judgment. New beginning of the human race under Noah, and new occupation.

Babel—First idol center. Second great act of divine judgment. Confusion of tongues and dispersion of mankind.

Call of Abram—First formal separation unto God. First recorded covenant of God with man, on basis of Faith.

Burning of Sodom, etc.—Third great judgment. Sins of carnality and sensuality carried to climax, and compelling doom.

Exodus from Egypt—Fourth representative judgment. Beginning of an elect nation. Passover, crossing Red Sea, Pillar of Cloud, etc.

Law-giving at Sinai—Beginning of legal code. Tabernacle, priesthood, sacrifice. Revolt at Kadesh Barnea, etc.

Entrance into Canaan—Crossing Jordan. Fall of Jericho. Occupation of land. Moral decline. Civil anarchy—period of Judges.

Kingdom Established—Samuel’s Judgeship. Three reigns. Temple building. Visit of Queen of Sheba. Solomon’s idolatry and apostasy.

Kingdom Divided—Revolt of ten tribes. Jeroboam and calf worship. Baal worship. Ahab and Jezebel. Elijah’s translation. Elisha. Sennacherib’s defeat. Revival under Josiah, etc.

Captivity—Israel in Assyria. Judah in Babylon, Jerusalem destroyed and temple.

Decree of Cyrus—Daniel in Babylon. Ezekiel, Jeremiah, etc.

Return from Exile—Second temple dedicated. City rebuilt. Deliverance of Jews under Esther. Fall of Babylon. Jonah’s mission to Nineveh, etc. Synagogue worship, etc.

Old Testament Canon—Ezra the Scribe. Septuagint translation. Pharisees, etc. Sanhedrim.
The following belong to the New Testament Period:

John Baptist—Last of Old Testament succession of seers. Forerunner of Christ. Baptism of repentance. Reformer.

Birth of Christ—Virgin mother. First appearance at temple as “Son of Commandment.” Early years at Nazareth. Carpenter.

Baptism and Temptation—Anointing of Spirit. Fasting. Threefold testing. Victory as second man and recovery of Adam’s lost scepter.

Beginning of Ministry—First gospel message. Initial miracle. Calling of disciples. Sermon on Mount, etc.

Transfiguration—First full disclosure of deity. Moses and Elijah. Discourse on coming “Exodus.”

Passion Week—Triumphal entry as king and rejection by the Jewish rulers. Passover. Last discourse and supper. Gethsemane. Arrest and mock trial.

Crucifixion—Two thieves. Seven sentences on cross. Death, burial, etc. Sealing of sepulcher.

Resurrection—Sloughing off grave clothes. Successive appearances to chosen witnesses. Walk to Emmaus. Forty days. Teaching about kingdom.

Ascension—Final interviews. Galilee and “Five Hundred.” Last commission. Session at God’s right hand. Priestly intercession, etc.

Pentecost—Ten days’ waiting. Outpouring at Jerusalem, in Samaria, at Cesarea, at Ephesus. Church established. Judgment of Ananias and Sapphira.

Persecution—Action of Jewish rulers. Dispersion of disciples. Martyrdom of Stephen. Conversion of Saul.

Foreign Missions—Church at Antioch. Call of Barnabas and Saul. Three successive mission tours. Europe entered at Philippi. Paul at Rome.

Era of Decline—Beginning of heresy and apostasy. Twenty-five years of comparative silence. Suspended inspiration, etc.

New Testament Canon—Three synoptic gospels. Epistles of Paul, etc. Jude, etc. John’s special ministry to church in decline. Apocalypse.

Destruction of Jerusalem—Final dispersion of Jews and end of Jewish dispensation. The great Day of Atonement was one of the central historic scenes of the Old Testament (Leviticus 16). The two goats—one slain for expiation of guilt, the other, “Azazel”—goat of “removal,” led away from before the presence of Jehovah and out of sight of the people, beautifully represent, together, sin as both atoned for and borne away to be no more remembered or brought to mind.

Isaiah 1:18 :

“Though your sins be as scarlet They shall be as white as snow;

Though they be red like crimson, They shall be as wool.” The Rabbins explain this by the miracle which tradition affirms to be connected with the Day of Atonement: that when the lot used to be taken for the Lord’s goat and Azazel, a scarlet fillet was bound on the head of the latter, which, after Aaron’s confession of his sins and those of the people, became white as snow; and it is added that for years before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus this miracle had ceased. This latter is a remarkable admission of the parties that clamored for our Lord’s crucifixion, inasmuch as, if true, it would make the time of the cessation of the miracle coincide with their rejection of the Messiah.

It is a curious fact that, if the most conspicuous events of both dispensations are carefully catalogued and arranged, they number in all about thirty, “and that the central one that is a sort of golden milestone to which all roads run and whence all radiate is the Cross of Christ.

Calvary thus becomes, in a double sense, the central historic scene of Scripture and of the world’s history. Its significance therefore must be inexhaustible. About those three crosses on Golgotha endless meditation lingers and hovers, with ever new revelations of truth and grace. In the center we see the suffering “Son of Man,” the vicarious, atoning Savior. On His right hand a penitent and believing malefactor, who that day is promised to be with Him in Paradise; on the left, an impenitent rejector and blasphemer, who, from the side of that same Savior, goes down to the second death. How sublimely simple the lesson, and how comprehensive. Here every great truth about sin and salvation, mercy and judgment is representatively hinted. Look at the truth taught about SIN:

Mr. B.W. Newton well says that in these three crosses we have a whole system of practical theology. Our Lord Jesus Christ is in the midst—the Mediator in Whom and through Whom we have eternal life. On one side the unbelieving thief, who abides in death; on the other the believing thief, who enters into life: so that, as we look from one to the other, it is as though we “passed from death to life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The Transfiguration should rank in our thought, as, in one aspect, the supreme event of our Lord’s human life, being the only occasion when His Godhead was fully revealed, the glory and majesty of that disclosure being more than human eyes could bear. Up to that point, His humanity was rather a cloak obscuring than a robe revealing His Deity; and, from that point, until His resurrection and ascension, the obscuration was even more complete. But, to prepare disciples for the awful tragedy before them, He permitted them for once to get a glimpse of the Son of Man coming in His glory and the kingdom of God, not in mystery but in power. The Resurrection of our Lord is without parallel as the one greatest event that has ever taken place. Only His Incarnation and Transfiguration deserve to be classed with it; and His final advent will complete the fourfold series with a full, final manifestation of His essential majesty, sovereignty and glory. The Resurrection must not be regarded as an isolated fact or event, but as incorporated with the rest, and with the whole consistent body of supernatural working inseparable from the whole Christian system and constituting it. A bird is fitted for flight not by its wings alone, but by its whole structure—its shape, and the hollow, cylindrical bones, filled with air, make it buoyant. A pyramid’s apex is but the crown of a pyramidal structure, itself a little pyramid, and all the lines and angles of the larger conform to the pattern of the smaller. So our Lord’s Resurrection was but one feature and phase of a life that is throughout supernatural and superhuman. He was miraculously conceived, miraculously taught and wrought, miraculously rose and ascended, and His final reappearance will be throughout a miraculous manifestation. The Resurrection has two great aspects which need to be looked at side by side, as they have a close mutual bearing:

Our Lord’s Resurrection is given such prominence in the New Testament that it is more referred to than even His death, and for a sufficient reason, for without resurrection even His death would have had no saving power (1 Corinthians 15). The words of Romans 1:4, are of vast importance:

“Declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of Holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”

Here is an explicit statement that in this event is to be found the one all sufficient, convincing, irresistible demonstration of the Deity of Christ. The whole sentence is emphatic—“declared”—characterized by precision, definitely, distinctively set forth; “with power,” “according to the Spirit of Holiness”—a phrase nowhere else found. The importance of the Resurrection of our Lord is set forth in scripture from many points of view, and the following should never be lost from view:

1. The fulfillment of a great Prophecy, in fact a center and keystone of all Messianic prediction (Acts 2:24-31).

2. The perfect demonstration of our Lord’s Deity, including His ascension, which is connected with it as another stage in His upward progress from the lowest Hades to the highest Heavens. Compare Ephesians 1:19; Ephesians 4:8-10.

3. The consummation of all miracle, itself not only the chief miracle, but all wonders in one, the deaf hearing, the blind seeing, the dumb speaking, the palsied limbs moving, when His dead body again heard and saw and spoke, and moved and walked.

4. The beginning of all Resurrection, a wholly unprecedented event. There had been reanimation, resuscitation of dead bodies before, but He was the first to rise to die no more. It was the inauguration of a new order and era.

5. The basis of all justification to the believer (Romans 4:25; John 16:8-11). Had He himself remained under the power of Death, how could He deliver others who were under its penalty?

6. The type, pledge and pattern of the believer’s resurrection (1 Corinthians 15; Php 3:10-11). Hence “the first fruits,” a sample as well as forecast of the coming harvest from the grave of buried saints.

7. The model and measure of the believer’s spiritual life (Romans 6:4; Ephesians 1:19; John 11:25-26. “Like as” He was raised, to die no more, “even so we also,” identified with Him in death should be also in resurrection and henceforth walk in newness of life.

8. The basis of the Gospel message to a dying world. In the Acts of the Apostles and all the Epistles, Christ’s Resurrection is the engrossing theme of pen and tongue, the central fact to be witnessed, and used to justify faith and hope.

9. The signal judgment upon Satan as having “the power of Death” (Hebrews 2:14-15). In the so-called “Golden Legend” there is a singular passage representing all Hades as declaring that if the dying crucified One of Calvary comes hither, He who called Lazarus back from the dead, will break the dominion of the Devil in the realm of Death.[1] [1]The Psalms in Human Life, pp. 110-112

10. The condition of the Pentecostal Gift of the Spirit (Acts 2:32-33; John 16:7). In both these passages the descension of the Spirit is made dependent on the ascension of our Lord. From all points it was an event without parallel, nothing before or after it, comparable to it. In its manifold relations to our Lord Himself, the vindication of His claims and the consummation of His work; to the believer in his justification, sanctification and glorification; and to the proclamation of the Gospel, it is absolutely unrivaled in importance. Hence Satan will never cease his efforts to make Christ’s resurrection a myth, a tradition, an uncertainty, or even a fabrication, or to rob it of all its essential reality by spiritualizing it as an expression for the survival of the influence of a good life.