Page:Southern Presbyterian Journal, Volume 13.djvu/582

 Thank God For Pain

If in everything we are to give thanks, Pain would be included. It is natural and easy (if we do not forget) to thank God for the blessings we receive, but when we "count our many blessings," I do not expect that many of us think of pain as being one of them; but it may be a blessing in disguise.

Pain in our body is a danger signal; a warning that something is wrong. I have often gotten a sand brier in one of my fingers. It was so small that I did not realize that it was there until I touched something and a sharp pain went through my finger. I hunted until I found and removed it, before infection started. I have a friend who was recently operated on for cancer. He had not suffered much, but did have a sharp pain or two. He went for a check-up; the X-Ray was used, and the cancer located and removed in time, so that he has every reason to believe that he will be a well man.

Our conscience often warns us of danger. We have heard this expression: My conscience hurt me until I made the thing right. A conscience may become seared and hardened until it no longer pains; we are "past feeling" and in an almost hopeless condition. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to prick our conscience and make it hurt until we cry out, What must I do? When our consciences pain us God is saying, My child, something is wrong; heed my warning. Let us thank God for tender consciences that pain us when we do wrong.

Thank God for a Heart that hurts! A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. But a broken heart hurts. Thank God, too, for a heart that aches for others, that feels with them in their troubles and sorrows. We live in a world where many hearts seem to have turned to stone; may God take away our stony hearts, and give us hearts of flesh; hearts that can feel the pain of other hearts and have compassion on them. Jesus' heart often hurt; He was moved with compassion, and His tears flowed as He looked upon wicked men and wicked cities. May God give us tender hearts; hearts like His, broken on Calvary. As long as there is sin, there will be pain. Some day sin will be no more; neither will there be any more pain. J. K. P.

Since God is Truth, and since Christ is the Logos, Wisdom, or Reason of God, one naturally expects that the contents of revelation would form a system. This expectation is not disappointed. The various doctrines of the Bible dovetail and fit into each other. A later part explains more fully the implications of an earlier part. For this reason a given chapter of the Westminster Confession is understood more clearly when it is compared with others. Predestination and Providence were closely related; the chapter on the fall of man lays the foundation for the doctrine of the atonement, effectual calling, and sanctification.

But perhaps Chapter VII on the Covenant suffers most in the absence of comparison with later chapters. And even after comparison, its implications are less clearly noticed than in the other instances, though they are not less but rather more pervasive.

There are two covenants, but for want of space the first can be only briefly mentioned. This is the covenant of works. God promised Adam, and in Adam his posterity, eternal life upon condition of perfect obedience. When Adam violated the terms of this covenant, God made a second, the Covenant of Grace. This Covenant offers eternal life to transgressors through the work of Jesus Christ. In it God promises to give His Holy Spirit to all the elect so as to make them willing and able to believe.

"This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law and in the time of the gospel; under the law it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision . . . all foresignifying Christ to come, which were for that time sufficient and efficacious . . . ; and is called the Old Testament. Under the gospel, when Christ the substance was exhibited, the ordinances in which this covenant is dispensed are the preaching of the Word, and the administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper . . . ; and is called the New Testament. There are not therefore two covenants of grace differing in substance, but one and the same under various dispensations."

It is in these words that the Confession states the relationship between the two Testaments or Covenants. The two parts of the Bible are not two covenants differing in substance or effect, but they are different administrations of the one Covenant of Grace. For this reason one must not suppose that Christ and the Holy Spirit are absent from the Old Testament. Remember that Christ said, "Abraham rejoiced to see my day." Paul in Gal. 3:8 says that the Gospel was preached to Abraham; and in I Cor. 10:4 we find that the rock in the wilderness was Christ. Regeneration, PAGE 4