LAST FOUR PERIODS, VIZ: 
1. Patriarchal Period.—Abraham to the Exodus. 
2. Period of the Judges—Exodus to David. 
3. Period of the Kings—David to Exile. 
4. Period of Foreign Dominion—Exile to Christ. 
UNDERLYING PRINCIPLE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
Opening with a short record of “ The Beginnings,” we are intro¬ 
duced to Eden with its beauty and happiness, quickly followed by its 
desolation and curse. 
Adam fell from the estate wherein he was created by sinning against 
God. 
‘‘So he drove out the man.” 
“ The drama of exile has often been repeated in the world’s history, 
but never so sadly as in the experience of the first pair, when— 
“ They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, 
Through Eden took their solitary way.” 
This doleful picture signalizes the fact that man, made in the image 
of God, with free access to His presence, has become, by his voluntary 
act, an exile and a rebel, forever losing the right to come into divine 
presence, for petition or communion, in his own name, or upon his 
own merit. So we have the underlying principle—no access to the King 
by the rebel, but through a Mediator. The sacrifices, the ritual, the 
High Priest, all emphasizing this principle, and typical of that “ Medi¬ 
ator of the better covenant,” the second Adam, who, “ in the fullness of 
time,” would make the last and only sacrifice to satisfy divine justice. 
The rise and progress of the work of redemption, wherein the Mediator 
undertakes to make atonement, are minutely unfolded in history and 
prophecy until Malachi closes the sacred canon. 
INTERVAL BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT. 
By means of history and prophecy do the Scriptures give account 
of the events by which the work of redemption was carried on from the 
beginning to its completion. When history ceases prophecy takes its 
place. While the Old Testament lights, the “stars of the long night,” 
hide their heads before the rising Sun of Righteousness, yet prophecy 
had cast a ray of light through the dark hours before the dawn of the 
“day spring from on high.” Although four centuries of silence are un¬ 
broken by a single sacred historian, yet the prophet Daniel had minutely 
covered the entire period in foretelling the destruction of the Persian 
empire, and setting up the Grecian by Alexander the Great, the subse¬ 
quent division of this kingdom into four parts, and the final overthrow 
of this divided kingdom and the establishment of the Roman Empire. 
So we have an unbroken thread of sacred narrative from the closing words 
of Malachi, “ Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare 
the way before me,” and the announcement in the opening words of the 
New Testament, four hundred years afterward, “ In those days came John 
the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Prepare ye 
the way of the Lord.” 
Christ and His redemption is the theme of the Old Testament, in 
history, prophecy and song, differing only from the New in that it con- 
91 
