216 The Fundamentals Testament Scriptures. If this declaration contemplates the moral element of these Scriptures, it means that no part of them shall be set aside by the New Dispensation, but "ful filled"-i. e. , filled up and completed by Jesus Christ as a sketch is filled up and completed by the painter. If, as others naturally interpret, the typical features of the Old Testament are included in the statement, the term "fulfilled,' ' as regards this element, will be taken in the more usual meaning. In either case the inviolability and, by implication, the divine origin of the Old Testament could not be more impressively declared. Mark how comprehensive and absolute the words ares: "One jot or one tittle." "Jot" (iota) is yod, the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabets; "tittle," literally lit tle horn or apex, designates the little lines or projections by which Hebrew letters, similar in other respects, differ from each other. We have here, one might say, the inspiration of letters of the Old Testament. Everything contained in it has divine authority, and must, therefore, be divine in origin; for it is unnecessary to show that no such authority could be ascribed to writings merely human, or to writings in which the divine and the human interests could be separated an alytically. Should it be said that the "law," every jot and tittle of which must be fulfilled, means here the economy itself, the ordinances of Judaism, but not the record of them in writing, the reply is that we know nothing of these ordinances ex cept through the record, so that what is affirmed must apply to the Scriptures as well as to the Dispensation. The only questions which can be well raised are, first, whether the "law and the prophets" desi gn ate the entire Scrip tures or two great divisions of them only; and, secondly, whether the words of Jesus can be taken at their full mean ing, or, for some reason or other, must be discounted. The first question it is hardly worth while to discuss, for, if neither jot nor tittle of the "law and the prophets" shall fail,
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker