A Goodly Heritage

It is a logical mistake to abandon faith in the Lord Jesus because of difficulties, insoluble perhaps to us, which occur in the books of the Old Testament. Look at the block of marble which has only just begun to feel the formative hand of the sculptor, and you may be uncertain whether or no the great master has realty had anything to do with the rough hewing of the still unshapely mass; but because of this you will not hesitate when the idea of the artist is perfected, when the marble has been inspired with beauty, majesty, and strength, and seems to have caught an immortal life from the imagination of genius. And so, whatever difficulty any of you may have for a time — and I believe it will only be for a time — in discovering the presence of God in His primitive revelations to the human race, this should be no reason for regarding with diminished faith the full revelation He has made of Himself in His Son. R. W. Dale, LL. D.

The revelation of God in Christ--whose contents are the object of Christian faith and are therefore described as the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints--does not consist merely in additional knowledge concerning God. Christ is the Saviour as well as the teacher of men. A large part, perhaps the larger part, of the revelation of God which has come to the race through Christ consists in the actual redemption of men from sin and eternal death. Those who receive the Christian gospel are not only brought under the power of great and pathetic and animating truths concerning God--they enter into the actual possession of a redemption which God has achieved for the race. To them the faith was once for all delivered. That is, the revelation of God in Christ, the Christian gospel, which is the object of the faith of all Christians, and which is here described as “the faith,” is committed to the trust of all who have been actually redeemed and restored to God by Christ. They ...