d by
the prophets and psalmists, at last appears, the greatest
Revelation of God to the world. Then he appeared in the Son
Himself; Christ is God; God in human form. He redeemed us,
He spurs us on, He allures us to follow Him, we feel His
fire burn in us, His sympathy strengthens us, His
displeasure annihilates us, but also His care saves us.
Confident of victory, building only on His word, we pass
through labour, scorn, suffering, misery and death, for in
His Word we have God's revealed Word, and He never lies.

"That is my view of the matter. The Word is especially for
us evangelicals made the essential thing by Luther, and as
good theologian surely Delitzsch must not forget that our
great Luther taught us to sing and believe--'Thou shalt
suffer, let the Word stand.' To me it goes without saying
that the Old Testament contains a large number of fragments
of a purely human historical kind and not 'God's revealed
Word.' They are mere historical descriptions of events of
all sorts which occurred in the political, religious, moral,
and intellectual life of the people of Israel. For example,
the act of legislation on Sinai may be regarded as only
symbolically inspired by God, when Moses had recourse to the
revival of perhaps some old-time law (possibly the codex, an
offshoot of the codex of Hammurabi), to bring together and
to bind together institutions of His people which were
become shaky and incapable of resistance. Here the historian
can, from the spirit or the text, perhaps construct a
connexion with the Law of Hammurabi, the friend of Abraham,
and perhaps logically enough; but that would no way lessen
the importance of the fact that God suggested it to Moses
and in so far revealed Himself to the Israelite people.

"Consequently it is my idea that for the future our good
Professor would do well to avoid treating of religion as
such, on the other hand continue to describe unmolested
everything that connects the religion, manners, and custom
of the Babylonians with the Old Testament. On the whole, I
make the following deductions:--

"1. I believe in One God.

"2. We humans need, in order to teach Him, a Form,
especially for our children.

"3. This Form has been to the present time the Old Testament
in its exis