The Means of Grace in the Old Testament.
The gospel of Christ, that is, the divine message of the forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ, was the means of grace for the entire Old Testament period. This is what the Scriptures themselves teach us. It says: "All the prophets testify about Christ, that through his name all who believe in him shall receive forgiveness of sins.873) Abraham believed in Christ,874) and Moses wrote about him.875) The Christians of the New Testament believe like Abraham and therefore, even though they are not bodily descended from Abraham, they are called "Abraham's children" (νίοί 'Αβραάμ)876) and "Abraham's seed" (τον Αβραάμ σπέρμα).877) In particular, in the New Testament Scriptures it is still emphasized that the Christian doctrine of justification, namely, justification by faith in Christ without works of the law, has witness throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, μαρτνρονμένη νπο τον νόμον και των προφητών,878) The whole fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans is devoted to the special proof that the New Testament doctrine of justification is not a Novum, but also in all the Old Testament. Even during the Mosaic covenant of law, the promise of Christ as the means of grace remained in force, διαϑήκην προκεκνρωμένην νπο τον ϑεον είς Χριστόν ό … νόμος οὐκ ἀκυροῖ, εἰς τὸ καταργῆσαι τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν [“the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect”],879) That the Jews, when Christ appeared in the fullness of time, did not believe in Him, Christ Himself attributes to the fact that they did not believe Moses's writings,880) and the reason for the fact that even the
873) Acts 10:43.
874) Joh. 8:56: "Abraham, your father, rejoiced (ήγαλλιάσατο) that he should see my day, and he saw it and rejoiced." Luther (XI, 573): "Where and when did he see him? Not with bodily eyes, as the Jews understand it, but with the face of faith he recognized Christ, when it was said to him Gen. 22: 'Through your seed shall all the heathen be blessed.' … The day of Christ is the time of the Gospel" (the time of the New Testament). So correctly also Luthardt on this passage But entered into the text is Luthardt's remark on καί εϊδεν καί ίχάρη: "Realized was that joy on that time, of the Christ only after the death of Abraham."
875) John 5:46.
876) Gal. 3:7: oί εκ πίστεως, οντοί είαιν νίοί Αβραάμ..
877) Gal. 3:29: Ei δε νμεΐς Χρίστον, άρα τον Αβραάμ σπέρμα εστέ....
878) Rom. 3:21.<w:t>879) Gal. 3:17.<w:t>880) Joh. 5:45-47.
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disciples could not quite find themselves in the death and resurrection of Christ, Christ reveals with the words: "O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!"881) The same reason, namely non-observance of the words of Scripture, is present in all older and newer theologians, who do not recognize that since the Fall, throughout the whole period of the Old Testament, the Gospel of Christ was the means of grace given to men, and faith in this Gospel made men children of God. Of course, the newer world of theologians, of liberal and positive trend, gives itself the appearance of theological superiority especially on this point. It finds in all those who understand the Old Testament as Christ and the apostles a lack of "historical understanding" of the Old Testament revelation in general and a deficit in exegetical meticulousness in particular. But in fact it stands that the newer theology proceeds very unhistorically, transferring its own deficit in the understanding of the prophecies of Christ to the children of God of the Old Testament.882) This is especially evident in the expositions with which one has tried to understand the Protoevangelium, Gen. 3:15. The "seed of the woman" is not meant to refer to the individual person of Christ, but "impersonally" to all mankind. We have already shown the impossibility of this conception in another context.883) Here it should be pointed out that we have no right to attribute to Adam and Eve the lack of understanding that is manifested in the impersonal conception of the seed of the woman. When the first parents heard, in regard to the woman's seed, the mighty predicate that he would crush the serpent's head (ה֚וּא יְשׁוּפְךָ֣ רֹ֔אשׁ [HEBREW: Gen. 3:15]), they could not possibly think of an "impersonal subject." Impersonal subjects — we may also credit Adam and Eve with this realization — do not perform such deeds. In particular Adam and Eve could also not come to the thought that the "descendants of the woman" or the whole mankind will accomplish this enormous work. The factual situation was, in historical view, this: Adam and Eve knew from their own painful experience that the devil had overcome them while they were still intact and alive ((in statu integritatis). How far
881) Luke 24:25.
882) Cf. Gerhard's Summa gex V. T. Locus de ev., § 9.
883) II, 622, note 1444.
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from them, therefore, must have been the thought that a human race fallen into guilt and sin, doomed to death, or even a mere man, would redeem the guilt of sin and overcome death! The fact that newer theologians have this opinion and believe the fallen human race to be capable of such heroic deeds with regard to overcoming the guilt of sin and death is only due to the fact that they disregard the "historical situation" that existed at the time of the Fall. But surely we have no right to date this disregard of the situation backwards and also to ascribe it to Adam and Eve against their own experience. We certainly remain on the ground of the "historical view" if we assume that Adam and Eve were very attentive listeners to the promise of the woman's seed, which would make up for their terrible misfortune, and therefore also particularly noticed that in the promise God Himself appears as the agent. It is not a man or mankind, but God Himself who puts the enmity between the devil and his seed and the woman and her seed. The conception that the woman's seed will not be a mere man, but Jehovah Himself, Eve gives out as her conception when, at the birth of Cain, she calls out, "I have gotten the man, Jehovah." 884) Thus we shall have to agree with Luther when he called the first promise after the Fall both "very light and bright" and "very dark.") Very dark it is in regard to the secondary circumstances, because nothing is said here yet of Abraham's seed, David's offspring, Mary's son, etc. It is very clear insofar as it promises a woman's seed in which God Himself is the agent, and which puts away the devil in his work of corrupting men, that is, man's guilt of sin and death. We have Gen. 3:15 of the matter according to 2 Cor. 5:19: "God was in Christ.
884) Luther (I, 296): "Although Eve did not have this hope" (that Cain was the promised seed of the woman) "it nevertheless follows from this that Eve was a holy woman and believed the promise of future salvation through the blessed seed." III, 653: "When Eve gave birth to her first son Cain, she did not think otherwise, that he was the man whom God promised and promised to her, who would avenge her on the serpent. Therefore she also says: 'I have gotten the man, the Lord,' the God of Jehovah, the seed of the woman."
885) St. L. I, 240 ff. Cf. also on Gen. 3:15 Luther's sermon of 1526; St. L. III, 650 ff.
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and reconciled the world to himself."886) Luther says, "Behold Adam and Eve, full of sin and death; yet, because they hear the promise of the seed of the woman that should bruise the serpent's head, they hope for the very things we hope for, namely, that death will be abolished, sin will be blotted out, and righteousness, life, and peace will be restored. In this hope the first parents live and die, and are truly holy and justified also for this hope's sake."887) Luther, therefore, as far as the way to salvation is concerned, absolutely does not want to allow any difference between Adam's and Eve's faith and the faith of the New Testament Christians.888) Quenstedt expresses the same position thus: Idem evangelium quoad substantiam, quod hodie in toto mundo praedicatur, etiam in Yetere Testamento et quidem a primis lapsi generis humani temporibus viguit et promulgatum est, quo gratia Dei, remissio peccatorum et salus una ac eadem in Christo mundi redemptore omnibus annunciata et oblata est omnesque in Yetere Testamento, quotquot iustificati et salvati sunt, iustificati et salvati sunt fide in Christi meritum, quod profuit, antequam fuit. [Google]889) Those who have not come to this understanding of the Old Testament revelation of salvation should at least concede that it is the understanding of Christ and the apostles. That Luther and the old theologians allow a difference of degree between the Old and New Testaments with regard to the clarity of the revelation of the Gospel, they pronounce often enough.890) Also circumcision and the Passover were means of grace for the time of the Old Testament since their institution. Regarding circumcision, Gen. 17:7 says, "I will be your God," that is, your gracious God, who promises you forgiveness of sins through this sign of circumcision. That is why Paul calls circumcision a sign of the righteousness of faith,
886) Luther (III, 66): "The passage is absolution, so that God has absolved Adam and Eve and all of us. For if the seed is so strong that it crushes the serpent's head, it also crushes all his power; then the devil is overcome and all harm is gone that Adam had, and comes to stand where he stood before."
887) I, 241.<w:t xml:space="preserve">888) III, 661; XII, 494 ff.
889) Systema. II, 1013 sq.
890) Luther I, 236 ff. 1008. 1092. 1526. 1585. Quenstedt (II, 1014): Evangelium in Vetere Testamento sufficienter clare est propositum, sed non in eo perspicuitatis gradu, quo in Novo Testamento refulget. [Google]
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σφραγίδα τής δικαιοσύνης τής πίστεώς,891) And as for the Passover, it is clear from Ex. 12:21 ff. that the children of Israel were spared the wrath of God, not because they were Jews, but because of the blood of the Passover lamb. V. 23-24: "The Lord will go around and plague the Egyptians. And when he shall see the blood on the threshold, and on the two posts, he will pass over before the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come into your houses to plague. Therefore keep this way for you and your children forever." Therefore Luther says: "It is an error that the sacraments of the New Testament are different from the sacraments of the Old Testament according to the power of the meaning" (namely, as signs of God's grace ordered by God). … "Our and the Fathers' signs or sacraments have an attached word of promise, which requires faith and cannot be fulfilled by any other work. Therefore they are signs or sacraments of justification."892) As by the word of the Messiah to come, so also by circumcision and the Passover, the sacraments of the Old Testament, the forgiveness of sins, were offered and appropriated by believers.