Author: A. J. MaasPublisher:
ISBN: 9781500468620
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 786
Book Description
WHEN St. Luke tells us (Acts 11:26) that "at Antioch the disciples were first named Christians," he implies that they were Christians before they bore the name. If Christian means a believer in Christ, all that have ever believed in the Messias-the Hebrew equivalent for Christ-have been Christians. And since "there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12), all that have been saved from Adam to Noe, from Noe to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Jesus Christ, and from Jesus Christ to our own day, have been Christians, or believers in the Messias. It does not follow from this that the Messianic dispensation has been at a standstill ever since the time of Adam. As the sunlight has its dawn, its increase, and its noonday brightness, illumining the whole earth, so has the Sun of Justice his dawn immediately after the fall of our first parents, his increase under the dispensations of the four great mediators of the Old Testament, and his noonday brightness on Thabor, Calvary, and Mount Olivet, whence he "enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world" (John 1:9). It is the object of the present work to study the rise and progress and supreme splendor of this Light of the World from the inspired sources supplied by God's own goodness and infinite wisdom.
