As a result of the fall of man into
sin back at the foundation of the world, Adam and Eve lost
Paradise, holiness, eternal life, and the companionship of
God, and reaped sorrow, misery, and death. Moreover, all
their posterity faced the same result, and the whole world
was enshrouded in darkness and sin. In this period, we are
told, "death reigned"; that is, spiritual death,
which came as a result of universal sin. Man stood in the
attitude of a guilty violator of God's holy and infinite
law, and hence was under an infinite penalty. Since the
broken law was eternal, the penalty for its violation was
eternal. The justice of God demanded that man suffer for
his disobedience. God's immutability demanded that the
penalty of his law be executed to lift the penalty, he
would have been obliged to abolish his law; but since that
law was "holy, just, and good," he could not
abolish and yet be the God of law and order. Thus man
seemed eternally and hopelessly lost.
But mercy rejoiced against
judgment. The infinite love of God for lost humanity
brought his infinite wisdom and knowledge into action.
That wisdom, which is far beyond our comprehension, yes,
"past finding out," schemed a way of escape, a
plan of salvation. It was by providing an atoning
sacrifice in the person of his own Son. This secured
deliverance from the awful penalty and made the salvation
of a lost world possible.
Long ages before that plan was
fully revealed and opened to mankind in the coming of
Messiah, the Lord cast its shadow upon earth. It takes a
substance to make a shadow, and the substance must exist
before the shadow. In this, the substance was the
wonderful plan of salvation and redemption then hid in the
wisdom and knowledge of God—a "mystery hid from
generations and ages," hid in God, "kept secret
since the world began"; a mystery "which in
other ages was not made known to the sons of men,"
but "now is made manifest" "in Christ Jesus
our Lord." Its shadow was the law, its tabernacle,
sacrifices, blood, and service. The "law was a shadow
of good things to come." God selected the literal
seed of Abraham—Israel—to be his chosen people. To
them he delivered the law and all the blessings of his
kingdom in figures and shadows. The giving of the law was
the ushering in of a day of good things to Israel. In
type, "they all drank of that spiritual
Rock—Christ. That dispensation and law had some
"glory" (2 Cor. 3:711). Yes, brilliant rays of
light from heaven shone upon earth. Through priests and
prophets man could converse with his Creator and make his
desires known. This was a blessed privilege enjoyed by
Israel; a day of preparation for the ushering in of a
still more glorious day.
But that people, to whom God
delivered the lively oracles, forsook the God of their
fathers and, as a nation, drifted into darkness and
idolatry. This brought the wrath of God upon them, and he
answered them no more through prophets. The last prophet
through whom God definitely spoke to Israel was Malachi.
Then came an awful night of about four hundred years upon
that favored people, in which no prophet's voice was
heard. This was foretold by the prophet Micah as follows:
" Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets....
Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have
a vision; it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not
divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and
the day shall be dark over them. Then shall the seers be
ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all
cover their lips; for there is no answer of God."
Micah 3: 5-7. Midnight darkness filled the earth. No
prophet spoke; there was no answer from God. This was the
period from Malachi to the ministry of John the Baptist.
Men sought in the darkness of that night to find the word
of the Lord, but could not find it. Thus was the prophecy
of Amos fulfilled: " They shall run to and fro to
seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. In that
day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.
" Amos 8: 11, 12.
