New Testament survey

The New Testament naturally divides into three parts. First, the four Gospels as laying the foundation of Christianity in the revelation of the person and work of the Lord. Second, the Acts, in which are detailed the historical annals of Christianity for about 34 years — marvellous record of primitive missionary enterprise. In the former section the Lord is witnessed as acting on earth, and the Holy Ghost from heaven; while in the latter the Lord is regarded as the object of faith as present at God's right hand, and the Holy Ghost present on earth the efficient power of all Church and Gospel testimony. Third, the Epistles embrace the whole circle of Christian truth and doctrine, and the regulation of Christian life and service.

The book known by the name "The Acts of the Apostles" (The oldest manuscript, the Sinaiticus, dating from the 4th century, given the title simply as "The Acts," which is no doubt the better name for the book(, follows the four Gospel records. This is its proper place. The books of the New Testament have been correctly divided into five sections, corresponding to the first five books, with which the Bible begins, that is the Pentateuch. The four Gospels are the Genesis of the New Testament. Here we have the great beginning, the foundation upon which the subsequently revealed Christian doctrines rest. The Book of Acts is the Exodus; God leads out from bondage a heavenly people and sets them free. It is the great historical book of the New Testament given by inspiration, the beginning of the church on earth. The Pauline Epistles are the Leviticus portion. Holiness unto the Lord, the believer's separation and standing in Christ; what the believer has and is in Christ, by whose blood redemption has been purchased, are the core truths of these Epistles. The Epistles of Peter, James, John and Jude, known by the name of the Catholic Epistles, are for the wilderness journey of God's people, telling us of trials and suffering; these correspond to the Book of Numbers. The Book of Revelation in which God's ways are rehearsed, and, so to speak, a review is given of the entire prophetic Word concerning the Jews. the Gentiles and the Church of God has therefore the same character as Deuteronomy.

Faith then — faith in God — makes us certain, as to the canon of the New Testament, and we need no external evidence to prove it.

Here we might well let the matter rest, but in order to complete our sketch we would ask our christian readers to take a view of the beautiful symmetry of the New Testament. The four portraits of our Lord in the four Gospels — Son of David, Servant, Son of man, Son of God; the giving of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost; and the founding of the church in the Acts; Epistles on doctrine, the standing of the Christian, practical ordering of the church, the hope of the individual Christian in expecting his Lord, and his practical walk in the meanwhile: some addressed to various churches, and some to the Jewish converts who had peculiar difficulties to overcome, but containing principles necessary for all. Pastoral epistles for individual guidance when failure had begun to set in; and lastly, a prophecy of coming events, carried on to the end of time.

We want in this part to dwell somewhat at length upon that which we have constantly had occasion to refer to through our little book, as well as elsewhere, but which can never be repeated too often or given too great an emphasis. God's word is a unit, with one Author, the Holy Spirit, although He has used numbers of instruments throughout vast periods of time. The object of the Book is one, although this too is approached from every possible point of view — historical, typical, legal enactments, biographies, poetry, parable, allegory, prophetic denunciation of sin and promise of glorious blessing — all of which we find in the Old Testament. And in the New, direct narratives of the life, teaching, sufferings, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ; then the history of the establishment of His Church upon the descent of the Holy Ghost, and the going out of the gospel world-wide, in the Acts. The Epistles unfold the truths and responsibilities of Christianity, collective, and individual; then the closing book of prophecy, with its windows open to the heavenly Jerusalem, where the seer, not in a home at Babylon but in his prison Isle of Patmos, looks out toward the glories that shall be. Through them all, Christ is the centre, the object, the theme, and the end. He is the Alpha, from the first of Genesis; and the Omega, as the light and glory that illumine the heavenly city. Yes, Christ is all.

The four gospels display the great mystery of godliness, and the coming of the Son of God on earth to accomplish the work of redemption. While the Acts of the Apostles shows the beginning of the Church, the 21 epistles of the New Testament bring out the marvellous results of Christ’s work and the revelation of God’s love in Him.

The ACTS give us the account of the founding of the church by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, and then the labours of the apostles at Jerusalem or in Palestine, and of other free labourers, especially the work of Peter, and afterwards that of Paul, the scripture history ending with the account of the rejection of the latter apostle's gospel, by the Jews of the dispersion.

In the Acts we have the founding of the church of Christ, stating His resurrection and ascension, on which the Jewish and Gentile church is built, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit — the Acts not of the apostles, but of the apostles Peter and Paul (though recognising of course the others, particularly those who seemed to be pillars), that is, of the apostles of the circumcision and uncircumcision the ordering of the church by the deacons; the subministration by evangelists, deacons "who have purchased to themselves a good degree and great boldness in Christ Jesus"; the general diffusion of the word of the gospel by all the faithful preaching (Acts 8:4); and the foundation of the Gentile church, more peculiarly so called, on the ascended glory of Christ, that it might be "Christ in them the hope of glory," with the ordering by the Spirit of all their labours.

52 We have, then, in the Epistles, the ordering and care of the church and churches of Christ thus planted, in their various necessities, arising from the weakness of men, and permitted thus to arise that we, "upon whom the ends of the world are come," might have the answer, the rescript of God upon the case. In the Epistle to the Galatians, we have the great basis laid of justification by faith, and its connected doctrines, to the exclusion of all judaising to such an end. In the Romans we have a whole body of divinity in the way of dispensation, justly coming first, to chapter 8, developing all that was short of "no condemnation" — stating the whole of the Christian position in chapter 8, on the basis of thanksgiving for Christ; and from chapter 9 out, tracing the positive dispensations of God ordered beforehand, and resulting therefrom, closing with practice and a resume of the whole dispensation. In the two Epistles to the Corinthians we have the internal order and management of a church by the Spirit of God in the apostle. It would appear as if there had been no elders, that we might have direct from the apostle the arrangements necessary and pleasing to God for the purposes of the divine order; at least, elders do not at all appear throughout the books, but the directions are immediate to the church. I think this a remarkable and singular providence; to us at least it is so, and worthy of notice. For surely no goodness and provision for our weakness and folly is singular with God; boundless, multiplied, have they been. There are some who would despise it, as of little or no profit for the purpose for which it is given. What else is it for? I can conceive nothing more base than, having by perverseness disabled one's self from the use of means which God has provided, to turn round and say the means are deficient, without a symptom of humiliation for the real cause.

In the Acts of the Apostles we have the foundation of the church, by the power of the Spirit of God; the commencement and development of the church in Jerusalem, through the instrumentality of the twelve; then the Gentiles grafted into the good olive-tree by Peter, the apostle of the circumcision; and, when Jerusalem had rejected the testimony, the church fully revealed and called by the ministry of Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles.

The New Testament contains 27 books, the work of eight inspired writers, and all written within a period of fifty years. All close in our version, although not in the Greek copies, with the Spirit's "Amen" except the epistles of James and Third John. Some of these inspired penman were illiterate men, as Peter and John (Acts 4:13); others scholarly, as Luke and Paul. These books are not arranged chronologically, save, perhaps, the Gospels and Acts.

In the case of the New Testament, the whole of Christendom is agreed. All the books making up its canon were composed within the compass of a single generation; and therefore easily capable of being marked off from all other writings. Every single book of the New Testament was written either by an apostle, or in the case of two of the gospels, by immediate companions of apostles. And, as though to make assurance doubly sure, the life of St. John was extended over a long period, in order that no book might go out to the world, as canonical and inspired, but what he had sanctioned as such; and in this matter he exercised his Master's authority.

There were indeed some congregations at an early time, which had not known some of the books:— such as the Epistle to the Hebrews, the 2nd Epistle of St. Peter, the two shorter Epistles of St. John, and the Apocalypse: but, upon investigation, it is clearly seen that they never rejected these writings, but only that the writings had not at that moment reached them.