Chapter 5.

CHAPTER 5.

The view which the apostles give of Christ, after their most perfect illumination by the Spirit of truth.

1. IF we wish to see the true character of our Lord more fully ascertained, we cannot do better than attentively consider the view which the evangelists and apostles have given us of it. The Lord Jesus had informed them, “that he had many things to say unto them,” but, adds he, “ye cannot bear them now: howbeit, when the Spirit of truth is come, he shall guide you into all the truth: he shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you: all things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you,” John 16:12. Now, it is well known, they wrote all their epistles and the four Gospels after the accomplishment of this gracious promise; that is, after the “Spirit of truth had guided them into all the truth,” after he had “glorified Christ, by receiving and showing unto them of the things which are his.” We may, therefore, notwithstanding Dr. Priestley’s unbelief in this matter, be fully assured of their inspiration, as writers as well as speakers; and may absolutely depend upon the certain truth of what they have delivered, especially respecting so important a point as the real character and dignity of their Master and Saviour, the true knowledge of whom it was the chief office of this Spirit of truth to reveal, and their chief business to teach.

2. Now, in looking over their writings, we not only meet with many expressions and sentences dropped, as it were, by the by, when they had principally some other subject in hand, which expressions and sentences, however, give us great light in this matter; but we find several passages, written professedly, and of set purpose, to acquaint mankind with the character of Christ. And these passages we must especially attend to, if we desire to form a true judgment concerning him. Most of them. indeed, have already been transiently mentioned by Mr. Fletcher in the third chapter; in which the doctrine of the peculiar and proper Sonship of Christ has been stated and explained in the language of the inspired writers: but it may be well to review and examine two or three of those passages more particularly, that we may be more fully informed of his true dignity and glory.

3. The first paragraph of this kind that claims our attention is that which occurs in the beginning of St. John’s Gospel. “In the beginning (says that greatly favoured and peculiarly enlightened apostle) was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men; and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not,” ver 8. John was “not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light—which was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came to his own, and his own received him not: but as many as received him, to them gave he the privilege to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

4. “These words (says Bishop Burnet) seem very plain, and the place where they are put by St. John, in the front of his Gospel,—as it were an inscription upon it or an introduction to it,—makes it very evident that he, who of all the writers of the New Testament, has the greatest plainness and simplicity of style, would not put words here, such as were not to be understood in a plain and literal signification, without any key to lead us to any other sense of them. This had been to lay a stone of stumbling in the very threshold; particularly to the Jews, who were apt to cavil at Christianity, and were particularly jealous of every thing that savoured of idolatry, or of a plurality of gods. And upon this occasion I desire one thing to be observed, with relation to all those subtile expositions, which those who oppose this doctrine put upon many of those places by which we prove it: that they represent the apostles as magnifying Christ, in words, which, at first sound, seem to import his being the true God; and yet they hold, that in all these they had another sense, and a reserve of some other interpretation of which their words were capable. But can this be thought fair dealing? Does it look like their being honest men to write thus, not to say men inspired in what they preached and wrote? and not rather like impostors, to use so many sublime and lofty expressions concerning Christ, as God, if all these must be taken down to so low a sense, as to signify only that he was miraculously formed, and endued with an extraordinary power of miracles, and an authority to deliver a new religion to the world: and that he was, in consideration of the exemplary death, (which he underwent so patiently) raised up from the grave, and had Divine honours conferred upon him? In such a hypothesis as this, the world falling in so naturally with the excessive magnifying, and even the deifying of wonderful men, it had been necessary to have prevented any such mistakes, and to have guarded against the belief of them, rather than to have used a continued strain of expressions that seem to carry men violently into them, and that can hardly, nay, very hardly be softened by all the skill of critics, to bear any other sense.

5. “It is to be observed farther, that when St. John wrote his Gospel, there were three sorts of men particularly to be considered. The Jews who could bear nothing that savoured of idolatry: so no stumbling block was to be laid in their way, to give them deeper prejudices against Christianity. Next to these were the Gentiles, who, having worshipped a variety of gods, were not to be indulged in any thing that might seem to favour their Polytheism. In fact, we find particular caution used in the New Testament against the worshipping of angels or saints. How can it, therefore, be imagined, that words would have been used, that in the plain signification which arose out of the first hearing of them, imported that a man was God, if this had not been strictly true? The apostles ought, and must have used a particular care to have avoided all such expressions, if they had not been literally true. The third sort of men in St. John’s time were those of whom intimation is frequently given, through all the epistles, who were then endeavouring to corrupt the purity of the Christian doctrine, and to accommodate it so both to the Jew and to the Gentile, as to avoid the cross and the persecution on the account of it. Church history, and the earliest writers after St. John assure us, that Ebion and Cerinthus denied the divinity of Christ, and asserted that he was a mere man. Controversy naturally carries men to speak exactly; and among human writers those who let things fall more carelessly from their pens, when they apprehended no danger or difficulty, are more correct both in their thoughts and expressions, when things are disputed; therefore, if we should no otherwise regard St. John than as an ordinary, cautious, and careful man, we must believe that he weighed all his words in that point which was then the matter in question; and to clear which, we have good ground to believe, both from the testimony of ancient writers, and from the method which he pursues quite through the whole, that he wrote his Gospel: and that, therefore, every part of it, but this beginning of it more especially, was written, and is to be understood in the sense which the words naturally import.”

6. This being premised, I would observe upon this passage, first, here is a person spoken of termed the Logos or Word, ver. 1; and the “only begotten of the Father,” ver. 14. Secondly, this person is distinguished from God the Father, whose Word he is, for he is said to be with God, “The Word was with God;” and again, “The same was in the beginning with God, prov tou qeon.” Thirdly, He is said to have existed in the beginning. “In the beginning was the Word;” that is, as plainly appears from the third verse, in which “all things” are said to be “made by him,” before any creature was created, before any man or angel existed. Fourthly, He is then said by the apostle to have been God, not a titular god, or a god by office, a governor, surely, for there was then no creature for him to govern, or with respect to whom he could bear the title or sustain the office of a god in that sense. He must therefore have been God by nature, partaking of real and proper Deity, in union with the Father, whose Word he was.f75 This appears manifestly from the apostle’s assuring us, fifthly, that “all things were made by him, and that without him was not any thing made that was made,” ver. 3, and in particular, ver. 10, that “the world [viz. this world] was made by him,” it being perfectly certain and allowed on all hands, that as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews declares, he “that built all things is God,” properly so, creating power being undoubtedly Divine, if any power is so. See Romans 1:20, 25.

7. It appears also from St. John’s affirming, sixthly, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men; and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.” For this life which was in him, in the beginning, and was “the light of men,” that is, the source of all their wisdom, holiness, and happiness, before their fall, and which, after their fall, “shineth in the darkness,”—that is, amidst the ignorance, sin, and misery of their fallen state: this life, I say, speaks him to be a living agent, and that agent to be Divine. It appears, seventhly, from his being termed, ver. 9, “the true light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world:” for as no particular messenger from God hath ever appeared upon earth, whose doctrine hath been a mean of enlightening all flesh, those that went before him and had lived from the beginning, as well as those that were his cotemporaries, or should come after him; so we must of necessity understand this of that internal light, which, shining upon the understanding and conscience of even the most barbarous and brutal, and least civilized of mankind, enables them, in many instances, to distinguish right from wrong, and is a check upon them in their behaviour from day to day, restraining them from many vices, or accusing or condemning them when they commit those vices, and at the same time prompting them to some virtues. Now, as the Word here spoken of is affirmed to be this light, he must be one with that omnipresent and eternal Being, who, through the several ages of the world, has been and is visiting the minds of all mankind, by his presence, not leaving himself without witness in any, being, in the fullest sense of the word, “the light of the world,” even of the whole world. Accordingly he declares, Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” viz. at the door of every heart. “If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in unto him, and will sup with him, and he with me;” words which no mere creature can possibly use with truth.

8. Hence, eighthly, St. John, in a parallel passage in his first epistle, 1 John 1:1, 2, not only terms him “the Word of life,” (an expression which, however, would but ill suit a mere external messenger,) but the life itself, yea, the “eternal life,” that “was with the Father, and has been manifested unto us;” and here, ver. 14, assures us, he “is full of truth and grace;” and again, ver. 16, that “out of his fulness they had all received grace for grace,” or, as carin anti caritov may be rendered, “grace upon grace;” which things are certainly too much to be affirmed of any creature, however exalted. How can a creature be “life,” the “eternal life,” “full of truth and grace” himself, and a fountain of truth and grace to others? This “the Word that was in the beginning with God” was, even after he had laid aside his “form of God,” and had taken the “form of a servant, being made in the likeness of man;” after he “was made flesh and dwelt among us.” He was even then “life,” the “eternal life,” and “full [for all] of truth and grace.” Accordingly, he declared himself to be “the living bread that came down from heaven, and the living vine,” of which the holiest men are but branches, and “the head of his body the Church.” He complained that men “would not come to him that they might have life,” and invited, saying, “If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink: let him that is athirst, come; and whosoever will, let him come, and take of the fountain of the water of life freely.” These are certainly not the words of a mere man, or mere creature.

9. Two things more are to be observed in this remarkable passage. St. John tells us, verse 10, ninthly, that “he was in the world,” viz. in his pre-existent and Divine nature, appearing to the patriarchs and prophets; and that when he came in the flesh to the Jews, “he came to his own,” he having been, through all the ages of their commonwealth, (in union with the Father,) the “God of Israel,” and “King of the Jews.” These particulars also I hope to make fully appear, in the farther course of this work.

10. In the meantime, as a confirmation of the sense in which I understand St. John, let me observe in the words of Bishop Pearson on the creed,f76 “This [doctrine of St. John concerning the creation of all things by the Divine Logos] was no new doctrine, but only an interpretation of those scriptures which told us, God made all things by his Word. For God said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light.’ And so, ‘By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them by the breath of his mouth. From whence we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God.’ Neither was it a new interpretation; but that which was most familiar to the Jews, who, in their synagogues, by the reading of the paraphrase, [or the interpretation of the Hebrew text in the Chaldee language,] were constantly taught that ‘the Word of God’ was the same with God, and by that Word all things were made; which undoubtedly was the cause why St. John delivered so great a mystery in so few words, as speaking unto them who, at the first apprehension, understood him.”

11. In proof of this, the bishop produces in his notes divers passages from the paraphrase, in which (yyd armym) the “Word of God” is used for (hwhy) God himself, and that especially with relation to the creation of the world. “As upon Isaiah 14:12, where the Hebrew text says, ‘I made the earth, and created man upon it.’ The Chaldee translateth it, ‘I by my Word made the earth,’ &c. In the same manner, upon Jeremiah 27:5, and Isaiah 48:13: and Genesis 1:27, where the text is, ‘God created man,’ the Jerusalem Targum has it, ‘The Word of God created man.’ And Genesis 3:8, ‘They heard the voice of the Lord God;’ the Chaldee paraphrase interprets it, ‘They heard the voice of the Word of the Lord God.’ Now this which the Chaldee paraphrase calls armym, the Hellenists, [the Jews that used the Greek language,] named logov, as appears from Philo the Jew, who wrote before St. John, and reckons in his divinity first, watera twn olwn, the Father of all, and then, deuteron Qeon, ov estin ekeinou logov, the second God, who is his Word, whom he calls orqon Qeou logon wrwtogonon uion, the unerring Word of God, and first begotten Son. Nor ought we to look on Philo Judæus in this as a Platonist, but merely as a Jew, who refers his whole doctrine of the logov to the first chapter of Genesis. And the rest of the Jews before him, who had no such knowledge out of Plato’s school, used the same notion. For as, Isaiah 48:13, ‘The hand of God’ is, by the Chaldee paraphrase, translated ‘Word of God;’ so in the Book of Wisdom, h wantodunamov sou ceir kai ktisasa ton kosmon, 11:17, thy almighty hand which created the world, is changed into o pantodunamov sou logov ap’ ouranw , 18:15, thy almighty Word from heaven. And, Ecclesiastes 43:26, en logw autou sugkeitai wanta, by his Word all things are established. Nay, the Septuagint hath changed Shaddai, the undoubted name of the omnipotent God, into logov, the Word. And, therefore, Celsus, writing in the person of a Jew, acknowledgeth that the Word is the Son of God: Ei ge o logov estin umin uiov tou Qeou, kai hmeiv epainoumen,—If with you the Word is the Son of God, this we also approve of.”

12. Agreeable to this extract from Bishop Pearson, Dr. Doddridge, in his note on John 1:2, observes, “It would be the work of a treatise, rather than a note, to represent the Jewish doctrine of the creation of all things by the Divine logov, or Word.” And he presents us with the following remarkable passage from Philo, as a specimen of the rest. (De Profug. p. 465.) “Speaking of the cherubim on the mercy seat as symbolical representations of what he calls the creating and governing powers, Philo Judæus makes this additional reflection, ‘The Divine Word, logov, is above these, of whom we can have no idea by the sight, or any other sense—he being the image of God, the eldest of all intelligent beings, sitting nearest to him who is truly the only one, there being no distance between them. And, therefore, he (that is God) says, “I will speak unto thee from the mercy seat, between the two cherubims;” thereby representing the Logos or Word, as the charioteer by whom the motion of those powers is directed; and himself who speaks to him as the rider (or person carried) who commands the charioteer how he is to manage the reins.” This, Doctor Doddridge thinks, is a key to a great many other passages in Philo. He quotes another (from his book de Agricult. p. 195,) where Philo represents God as “governing the whole course of nature, both in heaven and earth, as the great shepherd and king, by wise and righteous laws, having constituted his unerring Word, his only begotten Son, to preside as his viceroy over his holy flock.”

For the illustration of which, he (Philo) quotes Exodus 23:23, though in a form somewhat different from our reading,— “Behold, I AM: I will send my angel before thy face, to keep thee in the way.” (See Doddridge’s Family Expositor.)

13. But not to dwell any longer on the testimony of Philo and the Chaldee paraphrast, let it be observed that He, who is by St. John termed the Logos or Word, and the “only begotten” of the Father, is, by St. Paul, Colossians 1:15, called “the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature;” or as washv ktisewv means, of the whole creation, and, by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, is said to be “the brightness of his Father’s glory,” [apaugasma thv doxhv, the effulgence of his glory,] and “the express image, [carakthr thv upostasewv autou, the character, exact delineation, or perfect resemblance] of his person.” By the “first born of the whole creation,” the apostle must mean either begotten before the existence of any creature,f77 viz. from everlasting, as Micah has it, or the head, the Lord, the heir of the whole creation, the first, born being heir and lord of all. Hence the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, the Father hath appointed him “heir of all things,” and St. Peter entitles him “Lord of all,” Hebrews 1:2; Acts 10:36. “The image of the invisible God,” is an expression, which must at least signify, that he exactly resembles his Father, and is the person in and by whom the invisible God is, as it were, made visible; in and through whom the glory of God is displayed, and shines forth to his creatures. According to the words of St. John, “No one (oudeiv) hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him:” and according to the words of our Lord himself to Philip, when Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us;” and Jesus replied, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou, Show us the Father?” In the same sense he is undoubtedly said to be “the brightness [or effulgence] of his glory,” and “the express image [or exact delineation] of his person.”

14. Now that he, whose person is characterized in this language, is not a mere creature, is plain, because the apostle distinguishes him from all creatures, even from the most exalted—from angels, and that in four respects: FIRST, he is a Son, and the angels are but servants. “Being so much better than the angels,” says he, verse 4, 5, “as he hath by inheritance obtained [keklhronomhken, hath inherited] a more excellent name than they,” viz. the name of a Son. “For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son: this day have I begotten thee?” And again, “I will be to him a Father, and he shall be unto me a Son.” Not but that the angels may be called, and are “sons of God,” as Mr. Fletcher has observed above: but not in a proper sense; for being mere creatures, they have no natural right to the appellation: they do not inherit it, as the apostle’s expression is: it is not theirs by birthright. Not so the Son; he being the Word of the Father, begotten of him before any creature, “the brightness of the everlasting Light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness,” see Wisdom 7:26, is properly a Son; and, therefore, when he takes upon him the character and form of a servant, he empties himself of his original and proper dignity, and uses great condescension, (as the apostle informs us, Philippians 2:7,) in so doing.

15. Again. As a SECOND reason why he is “better than the angels,” and therefore not a mere creature, the inspired penman applying to him a passage quoted from the 7th verse of the 97th Psalm, viz. “Worship him all ye gods,” says, “When he bringeth his first begotten into the world,” he saith, “And let all the angels of God worship him.” Now certainly he who hath forbidden idolatry to men, would not enjoin it to angels. Surely he would not command those bright intelligences to fall down before one like themselves, a mere creature, at all infinite distance from true and proper Deity.

16. As a THIRD reason why he is to be preferred before angels, and therefore before the most exalted creatures, the apostle next reminds us that his character is drawn in language very different from that in which theirs is described, in the Old Testament, verse 7-12: “Of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire:” but unto the Son he saith, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom:” and, “Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thine hands: they shall perish, but thou remainest, and 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.” And, FOURTHLY, no creature, not even the highest angel, hath been exalted to the dignity, authority, and power, to which the Son is exalted: for (verse 13,) “Unto which of the angels said he at’ any time, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?” Their highest honour is, (verse 14,) to be “ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation.”

17. In perfect consistency with all this, he infers, lastly, in the beginning of the next chapter, from this manifest superiority of the Son to angels, that the guilt of those who reject or slight the Gospel spoken by him, is greater than that of those who formerly transgressed the law delivered by them. “Therefore,” says he, “we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, [viz. the law delivered by their ministry,] and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward,—how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by those that heard him, God also [viz. the Father] bearing them witness with signs and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will!”

18. It appears, therefore, beyond dispute, First, That the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews considered the Son of God as a being superior to angels, that is, to the most exalted creatures, as he expressly, and of set purpose, distinguishes him from them all, giving us, regularly, four explicit reasons why he is better than they. And, Secondly, It appears that he believed him to be possessed of a nature truly and properly Divine, because, among other passages quoted from the Old Testament, he produces two, and applies them to the Son, which David undoubtedly meant of Jehovah the true God—I mean the passages taken from the 97th and the 102d Psalms. Now whether we reflect that the author of this epistle (most probably St. Paul) was Divinely inspired, and therefore could not be mistaken, at least, in so important a point as that which respected the true character of his Master, whether he was truly God, or only a mere creature; or whether we consider the conclusiveness of his reasoning from the writings of the Old Testament, (which, as our Lord says, cannot be broken, or are infallible,)—we are certainly authorized to believe and maintain, that the Logos, the Word, “the only begotten of the Father,” who “was in the beginning with God,” and therefore, in some sense, is to be distinguished from God, nevertheless was God, and that in the true and proper sense of the word, even the “true God and eternal life,” 1 John 5:20.