Old and New Testament Scripture is to be found in
the Book of Genesis. In Genesis you will find the principle of the
atonement; you will find the division of animals into clean and
unclean, foreshadowing sacrifice; you will find the principle of the
acceptance of offerings that came out of the flock, and the rejection
of the offerings out of the field; you will find the pardon of sin and
the giving of covenants--all the essential parts of the New Testament
growing with their roots away back in Genesis. There is the first
declaration of the coming of this wondrous Redeemer. It was so dim and
uncertain that it was hard to tell what it meant; somehow, somewhere,
some time, "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." It
was so dim that our first great mother, when she had gotten her first
son, cried out in her joy, "I have gotten a man from the Lord!" She
thought she had the Redeemer, but she had only a murderer. It was
many a century before the Redeemer would come. The truth was unfolded
little by little; a little brighter it shone on the altars of the
patriarchs; it was unfolded a little more in the visions of the
prophets; was exemplified in the ceremonials of the temple; and in the
fullness of time it came with the Master and His disciples and the
outpouring of the Holy Ghost.

And then see, when the Master comes, how He takes hold of us, knowing
that we are but little, and that we have to be lifted up and enlarged
before we can take in these great truths! He says: "I have more to
tell you: you cannot bear it to-day; I will tell you to-morrow." And
so He gives lesson and instruction, and parable and illustration, all
through. His life, teaching these disciples, chosen on account of
their particular adaptation for the reception of His truth; walking
with them day by day, trying to lift their thought toward the
spiritual and the eternal; teaching them that it is not His plan to
put them on His right hand and His left, and trying to lift them up
toward a spiritual and eternal kingdom. So He keeps on all the time,
lifting them out of their littleness, saying to them later: "You shall
be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and in Samaria, and in the
uttermost parts of the earth." They did not know what to make of that.
He was lifting them out of their narrowness. And so He pushes on still
further with them, lifting them up, until, in the supreme hour of His
earthly history--after His agony, after the cross,