By this is meant that the plan of salvation has, under all dispensations, the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, and the Christian, been the same. On this subject much diversity of opinion, and still more of mode of statement has prevailed. Socinians say that under the old economy, there was no promise of eternal life; and that the condition of salvation was not faith in Christ. The Remonstrants admitted that the patriarchs were saved, and that they were saved through Christ, i.e., in virtue of the work which the Redeemer was to accomplish; but they also questioned whether any direct promise of eternal life was given in the Old Testament, or whether faith in the Redeemer was the condition of acceptance with God. On this subject the “Apology for the Confession of the Remonstrants” says1 concerning faith in Jesus Christ, “Et certum esse locum nullum esse unde appareat fidem istam sub V. T. præceptam fuisse, aut viguisse.” And Episcopius2 says, “Ex his facile colligere est, quid statuendum sit de quæstione illa famosa, An vitæ æternæ promissio etiam in Veteri fœdere locum habuerit, vel potius in fœdere ipso comprehensa fuerit. Si enim speciales promissiones in fœdere ipso veteri expressæ videantur, fatendum est, nullam vitæ æternæ promissionem disertam in illis reperiri. Si quis contra sentiat, ejus est locum dare ubi illa exstat: quod puto impossibile esse. Sed vero, si promissiones Dei generales videantur, fatendum ex altera parte est, eas tales esse, ut promissio vitæ æternæ non subesse tantum videatur, sed ex Dei intentione eam eis subfuisse etiam credidebeat.”
The Baptists, especially those of the time of the Reformation, do not hold the common doctrine on this subject. The Anabaptists not only spoke in very disparaging terms of the old economy and of the state of the Jews under that dispensation, but it was necessary to their peculiar system, that they should deny that the covenant made with Abraham included the covenant of grace. Baptists hold that infants cannot be church members, and that the sign of such membership cannot properly be administered to any who have not knowledge and faith. But it cannot be denied that infants were included in the covenant made with Abraham, and that they received circumcision, its appointed seal and sign. It is therefore essential to their theory that the Abrahamic covenant should be regarded as a merely national covenant entirely distinct from the covenant of grace.
The Romanists assuming that saving grace is communicated through the sacraments, and seeing that the mass of the ancient Israelites, on many occasions at least, were rejected of God, notwithstanding their participation of the sacraments then ordained, were driven to assume a radical difference between the sacraments of the Old Testament and those of the New. The former only signified grace, the latter actually conveyed it. From this it follows that those living before the institution of the Christian sacraments were not actually saved. Their sins were not remitted, but pretermitted, passed over. At death they were not admitted into heaven, but passed into a place and state called the limbus patrum, where they remained in a negative condition until the coming of Christ, who after his death descended to hell, sheol, for their deliverance.
In opposition to these different views the common doctrine of the Church has ever been, that the plan of salvation has been the same from the beginning. There is the same promise of deliverance from the evils of the apostasy, the same Redeemer, the same condition required for participation. in the blessings of redemption, and the same complete salvation for all who embrace the offers of divine mercy.
In determining the degree of knowledge possessed by the ancient people of God, we are not to be governed by our own capacity of discovering from the Old Testament Scriptures the doctrines of grace. What amount of supplementary instruction the people received from the prophets, or what degree of divine illumination was granted to them we cannot tell. It is, however, clear from the writings of the New Testament, that the knowledge of the plan of salvation current among the Jews at the time of the advent, was much greater than we should deem possible from the mere perusal of the Old Testament. They not only generally and confidently expected the Messiah, who was to be a teacher as well as a deliverer, but the devout Jews waited for the salvation of Israel. They spoke as familiarly of the Holy Spirit and of the baptism which He was to effect, as Christians now do. It is, principally, from the assertions of the New Testament writers and from their expositions of the ancient Scriptures, that we learn the amount of truth revealed to those who lived before the coming of Christ.