31. Systematic and Progressive Teaching

Systematic and Progressive Teaching

Chapter 30

Notwithstanding the composite character and complex structure of the Word of God, it is another sign and proof of a single mind that truth is unfolded in it according to a definite plan. There is unity in diversity and variety, and a progress of doctrine in consecutive teaching, where every human condition would forbid; and all this in as large a measure as could be expected, were there but one writer and in the same period. This is one of the most conspicuous evidential facts which scripture study brings to light.

Even a cursory glance shows that, where forty writers jointly contribute to one volume, with no chance of conferring together, there can be no systematic development of truth; yet, in a book, meant primarily as a moral and spiritual guide, in knowledge of both truth and duty, such system is desirable and needful, for only so can two leading purposes be secured: first, that any important subject, needing to be unfolded, shall find adequate treatment; and second, that there shall be progressive and exhaustive teaching, without either deficiency in fullness, useless repetition, or conflict of opinion. This department of Bible study can have here only an outline, for lack of space; yet it is of too great importance to be altogether omitted, and the reader who desires to pursue the subject further may find whole volumes devoted to its ampler treatment.[1]

[1]God’s Living Oracles, and especiallyThe Bible and Spiritual Criticism, by the same author, beingExeter Hall Lectures, published by Baker & Taylor.

It is a literary miracle, to be accounted for only on a superhuman philosophy, that in a book where all such systematic unity is impracticable, in the nature of the case, such marvelous features are found as the following which surprise more and more as new study more perfectly reveals them:

1. There is, quite uniformly, a peculiar significance in first mention. Whenever any person, place, important word, or subject is first referred to in Scripture, all subsequent recurrence of the same is forecast, or hinted; so that such first glimpse indicates its relation to the entire testimony and teaching of Scripture. The Spirit of God thus supplies in such primary mention a clue to all that follows on the same topic.

2. There is, again, a system of illustrative mention—an example or pattern of every important duty or danger, right or wrong principle or practice, once for all being provided. There is at least one such exhibition and exemplification of every form of virtue or vice, beauty or deformity, in character or conduct—a representative instance, with a corresponding example of God’s method of dealing with it in judgment or approval.

3. There is, yet, again, an exhaustive treatment of every leading subject. Scattered hints are found interspersed through Scripture; but, as though to aid even the simplest understanding and leave the most cursory reader without excuse, somewhere, from Genesis to Revelation, the mind of God is fully revealed on all major matters, the scattered rays of light being gathered up and focused at one point.

4. There is also consecutive and progressive teaching. If from the first to the last reference to a subject, the intermediate mention of it is traced, there will be found often, if not always, an advance from what is rudimental and fundamental to what is higher and completer, but which can only be understood when first principles have been taught; so that when the last mention is reached it is like placing the capstone upon a building. Of each of these laws, a few representative instances are offered as examples.

1. Primary mention. The very first words of the Scripture: “In the Beginning, God,” are a valuable first lesson. God is the universal Beginning of all truth and duty. Everything good finds in Him its source and its spring, alike the Author of Creation and the New Creation. The first reference to the Holy Spirit is in Genesis 1:2 : “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Thus our first glimpse of the Spirit is as a bird brooding over the abyss of chaos and bringing forth from it, as by a process of divine incubation, order out of confusion and cosmos out of chaos—light out of darkness and life out of death. What a forecast of all the work of the Spirit in the realm of the moral chaos, developing cosmos and light, life and love.

Light is first mentioned in Genesis 1:3 and it is remarkable that it is not said like all that follows to be “formed,” “made” or “created,” but called forth—commanded to be—to shine. In the expressive original “God said: ‘Let light be’! and light was!” Another forecast. For, throughout Scripture light is the name and equivalent of God, the uncreated One, it is never regarded as a created substance, but as uncreated and a creative agency.

Thus the Spirit of God forecasts, at the beginning, what He is afterward to unfold more fully, imparting a prophetic quality to all Scripture by which a fragment serves to indicate the whole body of truth, as a single bone, to a comparative anatomist, hints the whole skeleton of an extinct species of animal, or to a botanist, one fossil leaf, the whole structure of a plant.

“I find in Scripture,” wrote Benjamin Wills Newton, “a principle of interpretation which, I believe, if conscientiously adopted, will serve as an unfailing guide as to the mind of God, as contained therein; the very first words on any subject of which the Holy Ghost is going to treat are the keystone of the whole matter.”

2. Illustrative mention (Genesis 4). Cain and Abel are the first representatives of unbelief and faith, disobedience and surrender, hate and love, murder and martyrdom; with corresponding examples of Jehovah’s curse and blessing. If the whole body of Scripture be examined it will be found to contain one, and generally only one, conspicuous, illustrative example of every type of both good and evil. Abraham is the typical man of faith; Moses, the representative leader, law-giver and mediator; Aaron, the typical High Priest; Ahab, the idolatrous ruler; Elijah, the model reformer; David, the Psalmist-King; Absalom, the demagogue; Daniel, the pattern exile and captive; Nebuchadnezzar, the example of self-glory; Isaiah, the Messianic seer; Peter, the model confessor; Paul, the pattern convert; Judas, the typical traitor, etc. And of each form of crime with God’s abhorrence of it and judgment upon it, at least one summary instance is given, as in the case of the rebellion and profanation of Korah and his company; the hypocritical lie of Ananias and Sapphira; the smiting of the persecuting Herod, etc.

3. Exhaustive mention. James 1:18-25, covers the practical value and virtue of the Word of God: called “The Word of Truth”—the last of six instances where this phrase is found. It is the word of Life, the generative seed whereby God begat us (1 Peter 1:23); “the Engrafted word,” suggesting also life-giving power. It is the Rule of Life, to be received with meekness, of which we are to be “doers,” the measure and model of character and conduct. Last of all, it is the “Perfect Law of Liberty,” a mirror for self-revelation and self-regulation, obedience to it being freedom not bondage. What a summary! The Word of God is to the doer, light, life, liberty; a revealer of God and self, truth and duty; it makes and molds character; our attitude is to be receptive, reflective, retentive, that precept may be turned into practice.

4. Of successive and progressive mention, we may instance “the lamb,” or “firstling of the flock,” first referred to in Genesis 4:4 and last, in Revelation 22:3 in connection with God’s enthroned and glorified Lamb. Now, if between these two mentions, every intermediate reference be traced to the lamb as connected with sacrifice a remarkable succession and progression will be found, of which we here indicate a few prominent stages:

Here it will be seen that, in every new reference something is added not taught before—and that when we reach the closing book of the whole collection we have learned that the firstling of the flock offered by Abel was the first forecast and type of Him whom God Himself provides for His altar, whose blood is the refuge of sinners, who both expiates guilt and takes it away; who is the vicarious Savior, now raised, glorified, enthroned, etc. This is the more surprising inasmuch as the books which compose the Bible are not in chronological order; and yet, as they stand, truth generally is found unfolded in logical order, as though the Author of Scripture had not been indifferent even to the arrangement of books in the canon.

Another striking instance of progressive teaching is John 1-11. Taking John 1:4 as the key: “In Him was Life,” these eleven chapters progressively unveil the meaning of these four words:

There is, even to the concluding chapter, a continuous unfolding of Eternal Life as the gift of God in Christ, received by faith, realized in regeneration, satisfying spiritual craving, feeding and nourishing the soul, and culminating in resurrection triumph over death. The Death of our Lord Jesus Christ is the theme of progressive teaching. In the New Testament there are no less than one hundred references in the twenty-one epistles to its bearings upon, and relations to, both God and man, with no real repetition, but a steady development of doctrine, every successive mention being an addition and advance upon previous teaching. In the Epistles to the Romans is laid the great foundation: His death, the ground of pardon and Justification, reconciliation, and preservation in His life. In Corinthians there is an advance to the conception of Identification with Him in death and resurrection and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In Galatians we are seen to have been crucified in Him and with Him and to live by His life, walking with Him in newness of life. In Ephesians we are exalted with Him to the Heavenlies, etc. And so on to the end, each epistle carrying us further in the conception of, incorporation into, and identification with, the crucified and Risen Christ.

Such successive and progressive mention of truth might be expected if there is a divine method; it follows as a natural sequence. This is properly called a “structural law;” for it reminds us of a building process, the first mention being as the corner stone and the last the capstone, and all between, the structure of truth resting on the first and reaching toward the last. Mr. Newton says, “the only unfailing method of interpreting Scripture is the structural.”

All effective teaching follows a process of development, corresponding to the development of those taught, one lesson preparing for the next; learning advances by successive stages from the lower to the higher. Our Lord Himself foretells a period of revelation in the economy of the Spirit, surpassing even His own in fullness and clearness.

“I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now; howbeit, when He, the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you into all truth,” etc. (John 16:12-13). In three respects at least this was true:

All this and more marked the era of Pentecostal outpouring. At once truth, previously revealed, became plain and new truth was unveiled. Disciples now found the deeper meaning of our Lord’s utterances and had new apprehension of Him in all His offices as Prophet, Priest and King.

One striking example of the new forms in which even our Lord’s teachings might be presented after the Spirit was outpoured is seen by comparing the parable of the vine and the branches in John 15, with the teaching of the same essential truth in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, etc.

If we compare the two metaphors—the Vine and the Body—we detect striking resemblances and correspondences:

And so in other respects, singular correspondences. Yet our Lord left this higher method of conveying the same truth till the Spirit forming the body of Christ and pervading it with the breath of His divine life should thus supply a key to this new metaphor, unintelligible before.

If the teaching of truth, after Pentecost, is examined and compared with that previously taught, this additional amplitude of scope and transparency of meaning will appear, in scores, if not hundreds, of particulars, such as the vital relation of the believer to Christ; his identity with Him in death, burial, resurrection, ascension, session at the right hand of God and second appearing in glory; the new application of the Gospel of Grace to all nations and the new man made by the union of Jew and Gentile; the church as a called-out body, and its mission to and separation from the world; the man of sin and the final apostasy; the consummation of salvation in the city of God and new creation. These and much more waited for their fuller presentation in doctrinal form, until He the Spirit of Truth was come. We must therefore count Pentecost as opening a new and final era in the revelation of the highest spiritual truth. This general progress of thought reminds us of a pyramid, where all lines and angles meet in the top stone which is itself the whole pyramid in miniature—a model of the entire structure. In the Apocalypse all the leading thoughts, prophecies, promises and warnings of the rest of Scripture, and all the leading metaphors and symbols and figures of speech, previously used, reappear. We might say that it is a sort of compendium of the whole Bible. Whatever the date of its composition it could find but one place in the structure of the Word—it must be the closing book, the capstone of the whole; and in the last chapters we find exactly what we first found in the first of Genesis—the paradise with its river, tree of life, and Tabernacle of God with men—only with one difference—there shall be no more curse. Creation is displaced by the new creation and death and the grave, sin and Satan, are no more. Thus the whole Bible exhibits consecutive thought, progressive teaching; from cornerstone to capstone there is a constant ascent, advance and development toward ultimate completion and perfection. Not less conspicuous are some other features of the Bible as a whole, in its capacity as a moral and spiritual counselor:

1. Its silence and reserve, as marvelous for what it does not contain as for what it does. Its Divine Author knows where to advance and where to arrest revelation, where silence is better than speech and where curiosity becomes intrusive and irreverent. We are not told whether there are “few that be saved,” or when moral responsibility begins in a child, or just when the end of the age will come. Some things are left wisely under a veil.

2. Its Individual Fitness. Here is a magic mirror where every man may see himself, and find the thoughts of his heart revealed. Here is a universal oracle where every inquirer may find response to his own question and need, and as close fitting a guidance as though he were the only one requiring counsel. It is not like an armory with one style of armor, but one where each man finds his own coat of mail and weapons that fit him and no one else.

Such are some of the evidences that in the construction of the Bible there has been a Divine Designer and Builder at work.