Acts 13:16-41 - Homiletics

The New Testament in the Old.

The expositions of the Scriptures of the Old Testament by the writers and speakers of the New Testament are worthy of our deepest attention, Not only do they draw out from those Scriptures particular instruction which of ourselves we should never, perhaps, have found there, but they supply us with irrefragable proofs of the unity of purpose which ordained the long sequence of events themselves, through many centuries, and also ordained that a faithful record of them should be preserved in the sacred archives of the Jewish people. There is probably no evidence of more overwhelming power of conviction, when once it is grasped, that the Scriptures are from God, and that they are a revelation of the very mind of God, than that which is supplied by the continuity of events whose historical truth rests upon a solid basis, and whose meaning and purpose receive their only and full explanation in another set of events whose basis of historical evidence is no less firm and solid than the former. This double testimony to the truth of the gospel, supplied by the direct evidence of those who went in and out with the Lord Jesus, on the one hand, and by the prophetic preparation for those events, and the significant types of them, exhibited centuries before, on the other hand, together form a moral demonstration which, when apprehended, is simply irresistible. It is this which gives such force to those apostolic and other sermons which are recorded in this Book of the Acts. In this sermon of St. Paul's we have the election of Israel to be the people of God, their redemption from Egyptian bondage, their planting in the land of Canaan according to God's promise, first held up to view. Could any one deny the truth of those events? Were not the Jewish people still in actual possession of the land of Canaan? Living in the midst of heathens, were they not, and were not they alone, worshippers of the true and living God? Did they not possess the sacred oracles? And if they went back century by century, did they not come to the time when the seven nations of Canaan possessed the land, and when their fathers dis possessed them of it? If they went further back still, was there not the Egyptian bondage described in their ancient records, living in their traditions and sacred songs, engraved in the monuments and annals of Egypt? Yes; God had dealt with them as he had dealt with no other people. They were the children of miracle, the heirs of Divine promises, the depositaries of a Divine plan, the ordained instruments of a great and eternal purpose. Every page of their history proved it, as that history was slowly unfolded in the course of successive ages. And the purpose itself was partially revealed from time to time. Let them bethink themselves of David and his throne; his humble origin, and his exalted power; the hand which raised him, the promises which surrounded him, the expectations which clung to his name. Did he not live in the hearts and hopes of the people through ages of oppression and wrong? Did not his name still glow on the page of prophecy, as the heir of mercy, as the future prince of Israel, as the founder of Israel's glory? What did all these things mean? What was the hidden truth that swelled and was ready to burst under all these images? What was the womb of time so big with in the days which had come upon them? There was an answer, and one only answer, to these questions. The history of their fathers was explained by one and only one fact, and that was the birth of Jesus Christ, of the seed of Abraham and of the lineage of David, to be the Savior of Israel, and not of Israel only, but also of the whole world. And he Paul was there to tell them of Jesus Christ: how he was born in the city of David; how John the Baptist bore witness of him; how in him was fulfilled all that was written in the Law of Moses and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning the Christ that should come. Let them turn to those prophets and to those Psalms, and see what was there written concerning the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. It had all been fulfilled. The Man of sorrows had been despised and rejected; his hands and his feet had been pierced on the tree; they had parted his raiment among them and cast lots upon his vesture; he had gone to the grave and to hell; he had risen again and seen no corruption; his old companions had seen him many days after his resurrection; they had eaten and drunk with him, and in their sight he had gone up to heaven. What further proof could they have that he was very Christ, the promised Savior, the Son of David, of whose kingdom there should be no cud? Let them believe in him, and he would justify them from all their sins. Let them not by their unbelief bring upon themselves the curse denounced by the prophet upon the despisers of God's Word. Thus it was that the fulfillment in the New Testament of all the types and promises of the Old was as the seal of God to the truth of both. The testimony of nearly two thousand years, in which words, deeds, persons, things, events, pointed with steady consistency to one Person that should come, was all concentrated upon Jesus Christ, who did come in the fullness of time. And the 1850 years which have elapsed since Jesus rose again have added their testimony, too, to all that went before. So that our age will be altogether without excuse if, shutting its eyes to the light of truth, it rejects the Son of God and misses the great salvation which he has brought to our sinful and fallen world.