Life is more than the fulfilment of all that has gone before; it is the new and unpredictable thing which come in the fulness of time, and takes for its own use what has been prepared for it.  There is a tendency towards Christ in the Old Testament; it is the divine historical preparation for Him.  But a tendency towards something, and a tendency to produce it, have to be distinguished.  While the ancient Scriptures provided Him with titles, types, and illustrations for His Person and work, none of these, nor all of them by themselves, is sufficient for Him.  He selects among them, and arranges them in a unity in His Person which surpasses their original sense.  Like Life, He is a new synthesis; under the influence of His Personality old religious institutions and prophetic insights are formed into an original spiritual fact.  And again, like Life, this new combination of truth cannot be analysed and explained by what preceded it.

To illustrate this bearing of the Old Testament on the revelation of Christ, let us take the two references which meant most to our Lord Himself; Jeremiah’s great prophecy of the New Covenant,^[1] and Isaiah’s Suffering Servant of the Lord.^[2]  Jeremiah perceived, as did St. Paul, that a covenant written on tables of stone was not suitable to unregenerate man, and that it must be replaced; at some future time God would make a new covenant ‘with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah’ written in the heart.  Jesus claimed to institute this New Covenant by His Death.^[3]  The very idea of a New Covenant is revolutionary enough, but the point is that not even a Jeremiah could rise above Israelite nationalism; the future Covenant was to remain with the Chosen People.  In our Lord’s fulfilment of the prophecy the Covenant is universal; it includes all mankind.