people of God. Philip and the critics are evidently at variance. If we
accept their method, we shall lose all reference in the Old Testament to
the atonement of Christ, and all proof that the sacrifice on Calvary was
that of "the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world."
Reverse the process, and we can still say,

The Holy, meek, unspotted Lamb,
Who from the Father's bosom came
For me and for my sins to atone,
Him for my Lord and God I own.

It is needless to multiply instances of this failure to interpret the
Old Testament aright. Let me call attention to the effect of this method
upon the interpretation of the New Testament, for the authority of the
New Testament is also undermined. The system of typical interpretation,
which sees in Christ the reality prefigured in Old Testament shadows, is
discredited as unscientific. The whole Epistle to the Hebrews is thrown
out, as a poetical clothing of "the man of Nazareth" with the fading
glories of an outworn worship. The idea that the high priest of old who
entered the Holy of Holies once a year not without blood, and the whole
Jewish system of which this formed the central feature, were a divinely
ordered prefiguration of Christ's atoning sacrifice for the sins of
men--this idea is called a mere human addition to historical truth.
Christ is no longer our great High Priest. His priesthood is mere
metaphor, without divine warrant or authority. He is not our Prophet,
nor our King, for his prophecies are not fulfilled, and his kingdom is
only that of a moral teacher and example. And all this, in spite of the
fact that the Epistle to the Hebrews bears upon its front the
declaration that "God, who in past times spoke to the fathers through
the prophets, has in these last days spoken through his Son," whom this
same Epistle then proceeds to describe as the effulgence of God's glory
and the very image of his substance, the Creator, Upholder, and
Redeemer of the world, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.

I do not undervalue the historical method, when it is kept free from
this agnostic presupposition that only man is the author of Scripture.
This method has given us some information as to the authorship of the
sacred books, and it has in some degree helped in their interpretation.
I am free to acknowledge my own obligation to it. I grant the composite
documentary view of the Pentateuch and of its age-long days of creation,
while I still hold to it