Jeremiah 36:32 - Homiletics

(last clause)

The development of revelation.

"And there were added besides unto them many like words." The second roll was a transcript of the first, but with numerous additions, though these were all similar in character to the original prophecies. We have here, on a small scale, an instance of that development of revelation which is evolved on similar principles through the whole realm of knowledge.

I. REVELATION FOLLOWS A PROCESS OF GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT . There are those to whom the word "development" has an evil sound, because of the excuse Roman Catholics have found in it for perversions of New Testament doctrines; while others object to it on account of its use in the scientific world, where they think it is meant to take the place of the will and wisdom of God. But the abuse of a word should not hide us from the important idea that it naturally denotes. Nothing is more true and grand and wonderful in all God's works than the principle of development which his great power and wisdom has made to run through them. The dawn advances through twilight to full day; the seed grows slowly—"first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear;" man begins life as an infant, and toils up to his full stature through years of childhood and youth; the kingdom of heaven began as a grain of mustard seed, and is slowly spreading till, from the work of that little company in the upper room at Jerusalem, "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." Revelation is no exception to the same universal Divine process. God did not flash all his truth upon the world in one dazzling moment. The Bible is a slow growth of many centuries. Progress is observable in the Old Testament. Isaiah saw further than it was given to Abraham to see. Jeremiah's vision of the new covenant ( Jeremiah 31:31-34 ) is in advance of the Levitical Law. The New Testament is a decided manifestation of broader knowledge and fuller light than the earlier revelation contained. Christ said to his disciples, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now" ( John 16:12 ). St. Paul's teachings go beyond the doctrines held in his day by the Church at Jerusalem. We cannot say that God has nothing further to reveal. The Christian believes that "holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation." But all the analogy of God's past action would lead us to think that there may be much truth which men were not at first able to see in the Scripture, and yet which may be known in successive ages and found to be of great profit.

1 . The human occasion of this development of revelation may be seen in the fact that the thoughts of men grow. God reveals his truth in human thinking. Men must seek him, and, feeling after the truth, are rewarded by God's revelation. But the revelation is proportionate to the progress of the search.

2 . The Divine purpose of this development may be noted in such facts as these: God reveals truth as man is able to receive it, as he is spiritually educated to understand it, as he is in a moral condition to profit by it, as changing circumstances may bring need for new stages in the development of it.

II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF REVELATION IS CONSISTENT WITH ITSELF .

1 . It does not set aside old truth. In the new roll all the contents of the old roll were rewritten, so that the fresh matter was not a substitute but an addition. Christ came to fulfil the Law and the prophets, not to destroy them ( Matthew 5:17 ). The gospel exceeds but does not supersede the spiritual truth of the Old Testament. No new discovery can ever destroy what is once known to be real and true.

2 . This development maintains an essential likeness between its earliest and its latest stages. The added Words of Jeremiah's roll were "like unto those which were first written. All truth must ultimately harmonize. One great test of a new doctrine is its agreement with previously established truth. All Christian truth must agree with the teachings of Christ and his apostles. That many so called developments of truth are really perversions of truth may be proved by the application of this test. Thus to us Protestants it seems clear that many Roman Catholic dogmas which profess to be developments of Christianity are so utterly contrary to its spirit that they must be regarded either as pagan additions or as relapses towards Judaism. So there are "liberal" notions that are really negations of essential elements of the gospel. It is monstrous to call these developments. The oak is a development of the acorn; but the hollow, blasted stump, which is the last stage in the history of the tree, is surely not a further result of the same process. Decay is not development.