07 - The Leaders of the Age
The age has always had its leaders, men of ability who are imbued with the “spirit of the age,” and who influence the direction and the rate of progress of the age-movement. But while the leaders have necessarily changed with each generation, the presence of a mighty and unchanging power, a master mind back of them all, is evidenced by the steadiness with which the age has held to its course throughout the centuries.
These leaders (or “rulers” or “princes”) are named in 1Co 2:8; and we are there reminded of their first act, which has shaped the course of the entire age-movement. We give the literal rendering of verses 6-8.
“We speak wisdom among the full grown, not that of this age, nor of the rulers (or leaders) of this age, but the hidden wisdom which God determined before the ages, and which none of the rulers of this age had come to know, for had they known it they would not in that case have crucified the LORD of GLORY.” The first act, then, of the leaders of the age was to crucify the Lord of Glory. Having thus got rid of Him, as they supposed, they proceeded to render the age illustrious and to procure for it a fictitious glory by a scheme of progress and development, to which scheme they have given the imposing title of “civilization.”
Who were these first leaders or rulers of the age who have had such worthy successors to carry forward their work in each succeeding generation? They were first, the Romans, the political leaders; second, the Greeks, the intellectual leaders, the rulers of the world’s wisdom and culture; and third, the Jews, the religious and moral leaders of the age. And so the earthly title of our Lord was inscribed upon His cross in these three languages, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. It need hardly be said that the attitude of the world’s political, intellectual and religious leaders towards Christ has not changed in the least since that day. All the significant phases of the age-movement have had for their object to justify the action of the first leaders of the age, to show that they did well in rejecting and casting out the Lord of Glory, and to show that the world can get along very well, and is, in fact, making splendid progress without Him. Do you wish to be found helping this scheme in any way, or believing in and looking for a millennium without Christ?