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The Lamb of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Extract

Christianity is essentially a historical religion. It is not primarily a system of beliefs, nor is it just a perfect code of morality. Christianity is first of all a vigorous appeal to history, a witness of faith to certain particular events or facts of history. For these events were truly eventful, and these historical moments or “instants” were utterly momentous. For, by faith, we identify and acknowledge them as “mighty deeds” of God, as His intimate interventions into the course of human destiny. Already under the Old Dispensation the Living God has established His Covenant with the Chosen People, Israel, and has admitted her, the only nation of the earth, into a fellowship with Him. The God of the Old Testament did not communicate to men abstract metaphysical ideas about Himself, but He met man and challenged him in the midst of his daily existence, “amid toil and tribulation”. The Old Testament was truly a Covenant, a sacred fellowship, not primarily the Law and the doctrine. True, it was but a provisional fellowship, a shadow and a figure of the Good Things to come. It was a Covenant of hope and expectation, a Covenant of prophecy and promise. The consummation was ahead. Yet, it was a real Covenant indeed. And in due course it was fulfilled and thereby superseded; perfected and accomplished, and thereby abrogated.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1951

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References

page 16 note 1 Vonier, Dom Anscar, O.S.K., The Personality of Christ, p. 9.Google Scholar

page 17 note 1 Adv, Haer., III, 10.2.

page 17 note 2 Epist. 101, ad Cledonium.

page 18 note 1 Ado, Haer., III, 18.1, 7; II, 22.4.

page 19 note 1 De Carne Christ, 6.

page 20 note 1 Eastern Orthodox office of the Burial of the departed, an anthem by St. John of Damascus.

page 23 note 1 Adv. Hear., V, 6.1.

page 23 note 2 De Resurr. Mort., 13.

page 24 note 1 De Incarnalione, 6–8, 21, 44.

page 24 note 2 Orat. XLV in S. Pascha, 28.

page 24 note 3 St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech., 13.6.

page 24 note 4 Eastern Orthodox office of the Good Saturday, Matins.

page 25 note 1 Cf. St. John of Damascus, De Fide Orth., III, 27.

page 26 note 1 De Inc., 26.

page 28 note 1 Easter hymn, recited by the priest at every celebration.