Chapter 3.
CHAPTER 3.
That, according to the Scriptures, God the Father has a proper Son, by whom he made, governs, and will judge the world.
WE cannot read the Divine Oracles without finding out this capital truth, that God, considered as Father, has an only begotten Son, called the Logos or the Word, whom “he loved before the foundation of the world,” John 17:24; “who is the express image of his person,” Hebrews 1:3; “by whom he made the worlds, who was in the beginning with God, and was God,” John 1:1.
We need only to consider the first verse of Genesis, to find an intimation of this capital truth. “In the beginning,” says Moses, “ELOHIM, the gods, [in the plural number, or God considered in the distinctions peculiar to his nature,] he created the heaven and the earth.” The learned know that Elohim is a word in the plural number, signifying more exactly gods than God; and accordingly it is sometimes so translated in our Bible: “Thou shalt have no other Elohim [no other gods] but me,” Exodus 20. “The Elohim doth know, that ye shall be as the Elohim;” which is rendered by the Septuagint, and in our version, “God doth know, that ye shall be as gods,” Genesis 3:5; a proof this, even to an illiterate reader, that the very first line of the Bible gives us some notice of the mysterious distinctions in the Divine nature, one of which is called the Spirit in the very next verse: “and the SPIRIT of the Elohim moved on the face of the waters.”
“In the beginning was the Word,” the Son the second of the distinctions in the Godhead, says St. John, “and the Word was with God” the Father, “and was God,” partaking of the Divine nature in union with the Father, John 1:1.
Is man to be created? these Divine subsistences consult together: the Elohim says, “Let us make man in OUR image, and after our likeness:” and when man is fallen in attempting to be like the Elohim, God says, “Behold, he is become like one of US—to know good and evil!”
Light is thrown upon this mysterious language, where David, speaking of the Son manifested in the flesh, introduces Jehovah as saying to the Messiah, “Thou art my SON, this day have I begotten thee.” Struck with the awfulness of this decree, or Divine declaration, the psalmist cries out, “Serve Jehovah with fear, kiss the Son,” give him the kiss of adoration by trusting in him as Jehovah Saviour, “kiss him, lest ye perish out of the way” of saving faith, if his “wrath” (the terrible wrath of the Lamb, described Revelation 6:16,) “be kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him,” Psalm 2:7, 11, 12. And to prove that this Son of Jehovah, whom we are to “trust in” under pain of destruction, is not a mere man, as Dr. Priestley supposes, but the proper Son of God, we need only compare with the above these two scriptures: “Trust ye in the Lord Jehovah, for in him is everlasting strength. Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and whose heart departeth from Jehovah,” Isaiah 26:4, and Jeremiah 17:5.
Agur had a sight of the mystery revealed in the second Psalm, when he asks, “Who hath established the earth? What is his name, and what is his Son’s name?” Proverbs 30:4. And that this everlasting Son was, at times, the object of the religious addresses of prophets and kings, appears from these words of the psalmist: “All kings shall fall down before him, and all nations shall serve him,” Psalm 72:11. “And worship him, all ye gods,” Psalm 97:7, the very passage to which St. Paul alludes, where he writes, “When God bringeth in his first begotten into the world, he saith, Let all the angels of God worship him,” Hebrews 1:6. But what was only on particular occasions taught the prophets, was continually held out to view by the apostles. God the Son, or “the Son of God,” or “God manifested in the flesh,” is the sum of the New Testament. He plainly spoke of God the Father; and with the blood of the human nature, which he assumed for our salvation, he publicly sealed this great truth, “I am the Son of God: before Abraham was, I am.”
He speaks of his eternal Father, as of his proper and natural Father, with whom he shared Divine honours before he appeared upon earth. “And now, O Father,” says he, “glorify thou me, [in my complex nature,] with thine own self, [at thy right hand,] with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,” John 17:5. Speaking of his appearance as Son of man, he calls himself both “the Son of God,” and “the Son of man, whom God the Father hath sealed,” John 10:36, and 6:27. St. Paul speaks the same language when he mentions “the Church in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ,” 1 Thessalonians 1:1. If he wishes “peace to the Ephesians,” it is “from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ,” Ephesians 6:28. If he prays that Titus and Timothy may be filled with grace, he looks up to “God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour,” Titus 1:4. St. Jude salutes those who are “sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ,” Jude 1. St. Peter, full of the glorious idea of the trinity, writes to them that “are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit,” unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of “Jesus Christ,” 1 Peter 1:2. In his second epistle, he adds, “We were eye witnesses of his Majesty; for he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” 2 Peter 1:17. And St. John, who declares, “the Son of God is come, the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father;” St. John, I say, salutes the elect lady, by wishing her “mercy from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father,” 2 John 1:3; John 1:1, 14; 1 John 5:20.
It is not possible that an unprejudiced person should read the Scriptures without being struck with this thought, If the Gospel teaches us that there is in the Godhead one who is called God the Father, it teaches us, at least indirectly, that there is another who may with propriety be called the only begotten, or proper Son of God—a Son by nature, and not barely a Son by creation, as Adam, or by adoption, as St. Paul and St. John, or by the resurrection from the dead, as those saints who came out of their graves when our great High Priest died and rose again to overcome death and the grave. And, therefore, unless the Gospel sets before us the most strange temptation to idolatry, (the bare supposition of which is not to be allowed for a moment,) there is in the Godhead a Son, who was in the beginning with God the Father, and who was as truly God with him, as Isaac, the proper son of the man Abraham, was truly man, like his father. This will appear beyond all doubt, if the reader weigh the following Scriptural remarks upon our Lord’s Sonship.
(1.) Some are the created sons of God, whether they are supernaturally formed out of nothing, as angels, or of pre-existent matter, as our first parents.
(2.) Others are the reputed sons of God, as all those who profess to serve him with filial reverence.
(3.) Others are titular sons of God, as all those to whom a share of God’s supreme authority has been delegated.
(4.) Others are (in one sense) the adopted sons of God, as St. John, and all those who, receiving by faith the proper Son, and being led by the Spirit, receive the initial adoption—namely, “the redemption of their soul.” And
(5.) Others, (as Enoch, Elijah, and the saints who now share in the first resurrection,) being sons of the resurrection, are the adopted sons of God in the full sense of the word; for they have received the full “adoption, namely, the redemption of their body,” Luke 20:36, and Romans 8:14, 23.
The first and last of these five degrees of sonship are the most extraordinary: but neither is peculiar to our Lord. For if with respect to his humanity, he was miraculously and supernaturally formed of the substance of his virgin mother, Mary, Adam was thus formed of the substance of our then virgin mother, the earth; and if our Lord burst triumphantly out of the womb of the grave, on the day of his resurrection, so did several of the saints, their graves three days before being opened miraculously, when he entered as Prince of Life into the territories of death; for, when “he gave up the ghost, the earth did quake, the rocks rent, the graves were opened, and many bodies of saints which slept, arose and came out of their graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” It could not be said, therefore, that, as Son of the resurrection, he is God’s “only begotten Son,” seeing many rose with or immediately after him, even the multitude of rescued prisoners, who graced his triumph when “he ascended up on high, leading captivity captive.” It follows, then, that our Lord hath a peculiar and incommunicable Sonship, of which these are some of the principal characters.
1. Though he is a created Son of God, as well as Adam, with respect to his humanity; yet, with regard to his superior nature, he is such a Son “by whom the Father made the worlds,” Hebrews 1:2. “The world was made by him: for by him all things were made, and without him was not any thing made that was made,” John 1:3, 10. Hence St. Paul, speaking of Adam and of Christ, says, “The first man, Adam, was made a living soul; the last Adam a quickening Spirit. The first man is of the earth, earthy: but the second man is the Lord from heaven,” 1 Corinthians 15:4, 5, 47.
2. Hence our Lord spake in the most positive manner of his coming from heaven: “I proceeded forth and came from God,” John 8:42. “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world and go to the Father,” John 16:28. “I came down from heaven to do the will of him that sent me. This is my Father’s will that sent me, that every one who seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” And when the Jews murmured at him, because he said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven”— when they whispered, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?” Our Lord saith, “Doth this offend you? What, and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before!” John 6:38, 40, 42, 62. And, alluding to “the glory which Christ had with the Father before the world was,” John 18:5, John the Baptist says of him, “He that cometh from above, is above all: he that is of the earth, is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all,” John 3:31. Who does not see, that if our Lord and his forerunner be allowed to have spoken the words of soberness and truth, he reigned in glory with the Father before his incarnation?
John the Baptist was older than our Saviour according to his humanity, and began to preach before him; nevertheless, with regard to his Deity, John said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world: this is he of whom I spake: he that cometh after me is preferred before me; for he was before me,” John 1:15, 29. And well might he say so, since our Lord himself says, “Before Abraham was, I am;” since St. John declares that the “Word was, in the beginning, with God, [the Father,] and was God;” and since David and St. Paul agree to say of him, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever—thou, Lord, in the beginning, hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands: they shall perish, but thou remainest: they shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years fail not.”
3. He is a Son so exalted above all that are called gods upon earth, that St. Paul fears not to say, “He is the image of the invisible God,” as a son is the image of his father, “the first born of every creature,” that is, begotten before any creature:—”For,” adds the apostle, showing that this is his true meaning, “by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible; whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers—all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, [before all creatures,] and by him all things consist,” Colossians 1:15, &c.
4. He is such a Son as can say, “All things that the Father hath, are mine,” being fully possessed of the most incommunicable attributes of the Supreme Being. If the Father say, “I Jehovah search the heart: I try the reins,” Jeremiah 17:10,—the Son says, with equal truth, “I am he that searcheth the reins and the heart,” Revelation 2:23. If Solomon said to the Father, “Thou, even thou, only knowest the hearts of all the children of men,” 1 Kings 8:39,—the apostles say to the Son, “Thou knowest the hearts of all men,” Acts 1:24; John 2:24. Doth the Father say, “I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God?” Isaiah 44:6,—the Son says, “I am the first, and I am the last; I and the Father are one,” Revelation 1:17; John 10:30. Doth the Father say, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end?” Revelation 1:8,—the Son, his adequate image, echoes back the awful declaration, and says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,” Revelation 22:13. Is the Father called “King of kings, and Lord of lords?” 1 Timothy 6:15— the Son is proclaimed “Lord of lords, and King of kings,” Revelation 17:14. Doth St. Paul call the Father “Lord of all?” Romans 10:12,—St. Peter says of the Son, “He is Lord of all,” Acts 10:36. And to crown these glorious testimonies, if Isaiah names Jehovah “the mighty God,” Isaiah 10:21, he gives the very same title to the Son, Isaiah 9:6,— and the apostle calls him, “Over all, God blessed for ever,” Romans 9:5. And if the Father is so incomprehensible, that “no one knoweth him fully but the Son,” the Son is likewise so incomprehensible that “no one knoweth him fully but the Father,” Matthew 11:27. “If no man cometh to the Father but by the Son,” John 14:6, “no man can come to me (says the Son) except the Father draw him,” John 6:44. And as Philip did not satisfactorily know the Father before the joyful day in which the Son revealed him to the apostles by the Spirit, see John 14:8, 20, 23, and Acts 2:1, so St. Paul did not satisfactorily know the Son till “it pleased God to reveal his Son in him, by filling him with the Holy Ghost,” who alone can savingly teach us to “call Jesus Christ Lord, my Lord, and my God!” Galatians 1:16; Acts 9:17, and 1 Corinthians 12:3. From this common, equal, and full participation of the highest titles, and most distinguishing perfections of the Supreme Being, it follows, that the Son (with respect to Deity) is as perfectly equal to the Father, though all the Son’s Deity came from his Divine Father; as Isaac (with respect to humanity) was equal to Abraham, though all the humanity of Isaac came from his human parent.
5. Accordingly our Lord was not only declared “Son of God with power,” by his rising from the dead; but he declared himself the very source and fountain of life: “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die,” John 11:25. Could the Father speak stronger words to “declare himself the true and living God?” Nor ought we to wonder that the Son should speak in so lofty a manner; for being the truth itself, he must speak the truth—he must speak as the oracles of God, which represent the Father and the Son as so perfectly united, that they are one inexhaustible spring of life and action, of grace and peace. “No man hath seen God, [the Father,] at any time: the only begotten Son, who is [even while on earth] in the bosom of the Father, [and who came in the flesh,] he hath declared him,” John 1:18. “I am not alone, but I and the Father who sent me,” John 8:16. “Believe that the Father is in me, and I in him,” John 10:38. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father: I am in the Father, and the Father is in me,” John 14:9, 11. “They have not known the Father nor me,” John 16:3. “Whoso denieth the Son, hath not the Father: he that acknowledgeth the Son, hath the Father also,” 1 John 2:23, &c. “Mercy from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father: he that abideth in Christ, hath the Father and the Son,” 2 John 1:3, 9. “If ye had known me, ye would have known my Father also,” John 14:7. “He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father,” John 5:23. “Our fellowship is with the Father and his Son,” 1 John 1:3.
From these and the many scriptures where mercy and all blessings are equally and jointly implored from God the Father, and from the Son of God, we conclude that, as the natural sun, and the blazing radiance which it continually generates, make one wonderful luminary—so the Father and the Son, who is the brightness of his Father’s glory, make but one God over all, blessed for ever.