As we have seen in the first half of this article the Old Testament ends, apart from the historical interlude of the Machabees, with the Prophets and their vision of all in God's hands. The worst that could happen, destruction, deportation, or death, is understood, as punishment from God. It is a marvellous vision, all the more so, first of all, for being in our World, and very much in our world; for the prophetic career is like any other, with its ups and downs. The book of Jonas, for instance ('Dove'; but also ‘Destroyer’), shows us some of the downs.

We are told that Jonas has a message for Nineveh. Now no one likes to go into a strange town, especially with unpleasant messages; so Jonas runs away in a ship. There is a storm; the sailors cast lots to find the unlucky one; and the lot falls, of course, upon Jonas. He is thrown overboard, at his own request, in fact; as the waters close over his head he must think, ‘At least, it's the end of that message.’

The claim of the sixteenth-century Reformers to return to the teaching of the primitive Church by the aid of the written Scriptures is still heard today, but not so often as formerly, because the spirit of liberal criticism has completely undermined that reverent confidence in the Word of God which was once so strong in the children of the Reformation. As The Times (London) confessed not long ago, ‘to the majority of Englishmen the open Bible is now a closed book…. The popular mind at present takes for granted that the Bible has been fatally discredited and that “nobody now believes that kind of thing”. The Reformers have handed the Church (the writer means the non-Catholic churches, of course) today a problem which they could not have foreseen. Rejecting both the papal usurpation ano the late-medieval abuses and corruptions, they sought to recover a “pure” Christianity.

The primary object of the meetings in the Synagogue was the reading of the Scriptures, yet this was quite a recent innovation, seemingly introduced along with the new institution. In order to realize this better, we must go back to the time of the Temple.

In the old days, when Israel had been gathered together in her own land, leading a national life that centred round the Temple in Jerusalem and the big annual festivals held there, the whole People used to go up to the Temple to offer sacrifice. The indissoluble bond between the Temple and the sacrifices made there was indeed one of the basic requirements of the Testament religion.

The Fourth Gospel has variously been called the ‘Gospel of Grace', ‘of Love', ‘of the Divinity of Christ',and all these may be applied to it with equal aptness. Perhaps the most striking title is that of'Grace'. It is the Gospel of hope in our future glory and of our present bliss. We are presented in it with a a divinely optimistic view of life because it brings the message of God's infinite and eternal love for mankind. One cannot read it, seems and not deepen one's love of God. All this arises from its central theme, which is Restoration. It brings to sinful man new hope of sallvation.

He sent away this Jewish people and went off. Look for Christ nowadays among the Jews, and you won't find him. What did he send them away for? Because he changed his features. You see, they would stick to the sacrifice after the fashion of Aaron, so they missed the sacrifice after the fashion of Melchisedech. They lost Christ, and the gentiles began to possess him, although he had not sent them any warning in advance. He had sent the Jews plenty of warning, through David himself, through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through Isaias, Jeremias and the other prophets, and a few of them did recognize him as a result—few, that is, compared to the number that failed to and were lost.