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(Luke xix. 20-24). The Law of Moses forbade the Israelites to mingle with the heathen
and, through imitating their bad example, fall into idolatry and other sins. The Law of
Christ does not merely forbid Christians to be unequally yoked with unbelievers and to
imitate them, it commands Christians to make all nations disciples, and to teach them the
knowledge of the True God.
In one respect there is a necessary difference between the Old Testament and the New.
The Old Testament taught men their sinful state in God's sight, and bade them look forward
to the coming of a Saviour, who would be born of a Virgin, at Bethlehem, and who was to
make His own life an offering for the sins of His people. The New Testament, on the other
hand, tells men of the fulfilment of this promise, and bids them believe on Him who has
made a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice and atonement for the sins of the whole
world. But this difference again is but the completion of the work begun in the earlier
revelation.
To some people it may seem that, owing to the gradual but steady growth of learning and
civilization, the religion which was suitable in Moses' time was out of date and
antiquated in that of Christ; and in the same way that the religion taught by Christ had,
in Muhammad's day, some six centuries later, grown old, and that it therefore required to
be supplanted by Islam. The answer to this is threefold: (1) Religious rites and
ceremonies may become antiquated, and, though at first helpful, may at last, under changed
circumstances and through loss of all thought of their spiritual significance, grow
useless and even harmful. But the principles of True Religion are unchangeable,
like the Moral Law. If they were once true, they must be true in every age. The principles
of the Mosaic Law were true in Adam's time, in Abraham's, in Christ's: they are true now,
and will be until the Resurrection day, and even beyond it. Therefore the essence of true
Religion can never change or become
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out of date and effete. (2) If the progress of learning and civilization requires that
there should be a corresponding progress in religious practices and ideas, and if we grant
(which we do not) that Muhammad's age and country were far superior to what Palestine had
been in Christ's time in learning and enlightenment, then it is manifest that Islam, in
order to suit a more advanced age and to be fit to be God's final Revelation, must be at
the very least as far superior to Christianity in morality, in spirituality, and in
freedom from a multitude of purely local rites, ceremonies, and observances, as
Christianity itself is in these respects superior to Judaism. Whether this is so or not
let those judge who are well acquainted with the teaching of the Old Testament, the New
Testament, and the Qur'an. (3) Human nature is the same in all ages in its needs, its
longings, and its corruptions. In every age alike, therefore, it requires to be purified
by the influence of God's Holy Spirit. In every age man is prone to sin, and requires to
be drawn to God. This can be done only though the revelation of God's love. The words of
the Apostle, "We love Him because He first loved us," are therefore the
expression of the highest conceivable degree of success in drawing man to God and
reconciling him to his Creator. The human mind cannot imagine any appeal in religion to
any higher or more unselfish part of human nature than that one which is thus affected and
made active in God's service by faith in Christ.
Once more: the baseless fancy that the Bible has been abrogated is confuted by the
clear and definite statements of God's prophets and apostles, and by those of Christ
Himself contained therein. Regarding the Old Testament, Isaiah, for example, says:
"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the Word of our God shall stand for
ever" (Isa. xl. 8). The Lord Jesus Christ teaches the same truth, that the Old
Testament shall not be abrogated, but that even the very slightest essential matter in it
shall remain in
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