cause ctf degradation, shame and death, the other shows the reward of righteousness to be glory, honor and life.
Though written by many pens, at various times, under different circumstances, the Bible is not merely a collection of moral precepts, wise maxims and words of comfort. It
- s more
- it is a reasonable, philosophical and harmonious
statement of the causes of present evil in the world, its only remedy and the final results as seen by divine wisdom, which saw the end of the plan from before its beginning, marking as well the pathway of God's people, and upholding and strengthening them with exceeding great and precious piomiscs to be realized in due time.
The teaching of Genesis, that man was tried in a state of original perfection in one representative, that he failed, and that the present imperfedion, sickness and death are the results, but that God has not forsaken him, and will ulti- mately recover him through a redeemer, born of a woman (Gen. 3 : 15), is kept up and elaborated all the way through. The necessity of the death of a redeemer as a sacrifice for sins, and of his righteousness as a covering for our sin, is pointed out in the clothing of skins for Adam and Eve ; in the accept- ance of Abel's offerings ; in Isaac on the altar \ in the death of the various sacrifices by which the patriarchs had access to Coil, and of those instituted under the law and perpetuated throughout the Jewish age. The prophets, though credited with understanding but slightly the significance of some of their utterances (t Pet. i : 12), mention the laying of the sins upon a person instead of a dumb animal, and in pro- phetic vision they see him who is to redeem and to deliver the race led "as a lamb to the slaughter," that "the chas- tisement of our peace was upon him," and that "by his stripes we are healed.'* They pictured him as "despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grifef," and declared that " The Lord hath laid on him the
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