CATHOLICITY OF THE GOSPEL.

BY

CHAS. HODGE, D. D.

PROFESSOR IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY.

Is he God of the Jews only, and not of the Gentiles also? RoMANS iii. 29.

WE are so familiar with the truth contained in these words that we do not appreciate its importance. Accustomed to the varied beauties of the earth, we behold its manifold wonders without emotion; we seldom even raise our eyes to look at the gaudeous canopy of heaven, which every night is spread over our heads. The blind, however, when suddenly restored to sight, behold with ecstacy what we regard with indifference. Thus the truth that God is not a national God, not the God of any one tribe or people, but the God and Father of all men, and that the Gospel is designed and adapted to all mankind, however little it may affect us, filled the apostles with astonishment and delight. They were slow in arriving at the knowledge of this truth; they had no clear perception of it until after the day of Pentecost; the effusion of the Spirit which they then received produced a most remarkable change in their views and feelings. Before that event, they

were Jews; afterwards, they were Christians; before, they applied all the promises to their own nation; the only Jerusalem of which they had any idea was the city where David dwelt; the only temple of which they could form a conception was that in which they were accustomed to worship. But when they received the anointing of the Holy Ghost, the scales fell from their eyes; their nation sank and the Church rose on their renovated sight; the Jerusalem that now is, disappeared when they beheld the New Jerusalem descending out of heaven; the temple on Mount Zion was no longer glorious, by reason of the excelling glory of that temple which is the habitation of God by his Spirit; old things passed away, all things became new; what they had mistaken for the building proved to be the scaffolding; the sacrifices, the incense, the pompous ritual of the old economy, which they had so long regarded as the substance and the end, were found to be but shadows. What was the blood of bulls and of goats to men who had looked upon the blood of Him who, with an eternal Spirit, offered himself unto God? What were priests and Levites to the great High Priest, Jesus, the Son of God? What was the purifying of the flesh secured by the sprinkling the ashes of a heifer, to the eternal redemption secured by Him who is a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedec ? What was access to the outer court of a temple, in which even the symbol of the divine presence was concealed by a yeil, to access to God himself by the Spirit? What were the tribes of Israel coming up to Jerusalem, to the long procession of nations coming to the New Jeru

salem, and kings to the brightness of her rising; the multitudes from Midian and Epha; they too from Sheba, bringing their gifts with them; the flocks of Kedar and the rams of Nebaioth; the sons of strangers and the forces of the Gentiles, hastening to that city whose walls are salvation, and whose gates are praise?

This change in the views of the apostles seems to have been almost instantaneous. While Christ was upon earth, they were constantly misapprehending his doctrines; even in the night in which he was betrayed, there was a contention among them who should be the greatest in his kingdom. But as soon as they received the baptism of the Holy Ghost they ceased to speak and act like Jews, and announced a religion for the whole world.

I. In the general proposition, that the Gospel is designed and adapted for all mankind, there are several important truths involved. The most comprehensive is that contained in the text: God is the God of the Gentiles as well as of the Jews. It is obvious that the Jews generally, and the apostles, as Jews, entertained very erroneous views on this until they were enlightened by the Holy Ghost; they mistook even the spirit of the old dispensation. It is true that Jehovah chose their nation for a peculiar people, and that he was their God in a sense in which he was not the God of the heathen. revealed himself to them as he did not unto the world; he instituted for them a system of religious observances; sent them his prophets to declare his will; exercised over them a special providence, and constituted them, in the strictest sense, a theocracy.

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There was nothing, however, in the Old Testament which justified the proud and self-righteous spirit which the Jews manifested towards the heathen; they were not authorized to look upon them as reprobates shut out from the hope of salvation, as unworthy of having even the offer of the true religion made to them. The surprise expressed by the apostles that God had granted unto the Gentiles repentance unto life, that the gate of heaven was wide enough to admit more than the descendants of Abraham, shows how much they had misconceived the spirit of their own religion.

Their great mistake, however, was in supposing that the exclusive spirit, as far as it did in fact belong to the old economy, was meant to be perpetual. They mistook a temporary for a permanent arrangement, and supposed that the glory of the theocracy under the Messiah involved nothing beyond the exaltation and extended dominion of their own nation. They were blind to the plainest declarations of their own Scriptures, which foretold that God would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh; that the Messiah was to be a light to the Gentiles, to make known the salvation of God to the ends of the earth; and that the sons of the stranger were to have in his kingdom a name and a place, better than those of sons and daughters. Even the affecting parables of our Lord, designed to rebuke the narrow spirit of his disciples, failed to make any adequate impression on their minds. Though they were told that the prodigal son was to be restored to his father's house, clothed with the best robe, and rejoiced over with peculiar joy, they understood it not.

It is not to be supposed that the ancient Jews conceived of Jehovah as a local Deity, confined in his essence to any one place, or restricted in his authority to any one people. From the beginning they had been taught that he was the Creator of all things; that he filled heaven and earth; that he was almighty, doing his pleasure among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth; but they believed him to be indifferent to the welfare of other nations; they did not know that he had purposes of mercy for the Gentiles, as well as for themselves. When they called Jehovah their God, they meant not only that he was the God whom they acknowledged, but that he belonged exclusively to them, that they monopolized his favour, and were the sole heirs of his kingdom. What Christ taught them by his Word and Spirit was, that God was as favourably inclined to the Gentiles as to the Jews; that the same Lord was rich toward all who called upon him; that there existed no reason in the Divine mind, why the heathen should not be fellow heirs and partakers of the grace of the Gospel, why they might not be fellow citizens of the saints and of the household of God. This is what is meant, when it is said he is the God of the Gentiles as well as of the Jews; he stands in the same general relation to both; he is as favourable to the one as to the other; as ready to receive one as the other; as willing to receive and save the one as the other. Christ came not as the minister of the circumcision only, but that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy, as it is written: Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people; praise the Lord all ye Gentiles, laud