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century of the Christian era. Of these four Evangelists, Matthew and John were
Apostles. Mark, the Apostle Peter's disciple, wrote what he learnt from Peter as well as
from others, so that in his Gospel we have the evidence of a third Apostle. Besides this,
the Gospel according to Mark contains many passages which must have been written down
before the Ascension. Luke, a friend and disciple of Paul the Apostle, wrote in his Gospel
the evidence not of one but of very many who had been eye-witnesses1 of the
events which he records. In the Epistles of Peter, James, and Jude we have the evidence of
others who were among Christ's most faithful friends and disciples. John, His dearest
earthly friend, has also left us Epistles. Paul's Epistles, the earliest of which (1 and 2
Thess.) were written about twenty-two or twenty-three years after the Ascension, tell us
the way of salvation through Christ, and the duty of Christians to walk worthy of their
holy calling and so please God. Part of the earliest Christian creed is given in one of
Paul's Epistles (I Cor. xv. 3, 4) in these words: "Christ died for our sins according
to the Scriptures; and He was buried, and He hath been raised on the third day according
to the Scriptures." Thus it is clear that the very earliest Christians thought that
the essence of both the Old Testament and the New was the Atonement for sin made by Christ
Jesus, and the proof of its efficacy afforded by His Resurrection. Among the other books
of the New Testament, the Book of the Acts tells us of the descent2 of the Holy
Spirit, the Paraclete,3 seven days after Christ's Ascension, and how the
beginning of the evangelization of the Gentile world was made. The Epistle to the Hebrews
explains the relation in which the Law of Moses stood to the Gospel of Christ. The
Revelation of St. John prophetically describes the struggle between the Church and the
world, and the final triumph of Good over Evil. (The ninth chapter of Revelation is of
especial interest to Muslims.) That book declares
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that Satan will strive to separate men from Christ by persecutions and temptations,
that Antichrist will come to lead them astray, and that, saved by faith, the true
Christians will come forth from the furnace of affliction like pure gold from the
crucible, and that finally Christ will descend from heaven with power and great glory to
establish for ever in the renewed heaven and the renewed earth His eternal Kingdom, into
which "there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an
abomination and a lie: but only they which are written in the Lamb's book of life"
(Rev. xxi. 27).
All these New Testament books agree with those of the Old Testament in pointing out
that the way of salvation, the way in which all nations are to be blessed (Gen. xxviii.
14), is through faith in the promised seed of the woman (Gen. iii. 15), who was born of
the Virgin Mary (Luke i. 26-381) to save His people from their sins (Matt. i.
21), who gave His life a ransom for many (Isa. liii. 11; Matt. xx. 28), who rose again for
our justification (Ps. xvi. 9-11; Acts ii. 22-36; Rom. iv. 25), and through whom alone man
can come to the true knowledge of God (John xiv. 6) and can obtain eternal salvation (Acts
iv. 12). Thus we learn how the promises made by God thousands of years ago to Adam,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David have been accomplished, how man is to be freed by the
Saviour from the thraldom of sin and Satan, and how the earth is to be brought to a state
of perfection and happiness far greater than in the days before Adam's sin.
To the honoured readers of these pages it will now be manifest that the Old Testament
and the New taken together form but one Revelation of God Most High. The Old Testament
tells us how men became sinners, and how God promised a Saviour from sin. The New
Testament informs us how that promise was fulfilled, how Christ Jesus has made atonement
for
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