Chapter 13.

CHAPTER 13.

Some objections answered.

1. WHAT has been advanced in the last chapter upon the humanity of Christ, will, I presume, if thoroughly considered, be found to contain a sufficient answer to most of the arguments brought to disprove his divinity. For they seem, in general, to be built on a supposition, that those who believe him to be God, either deny him to be man, or imagine his manhood to have been absorbed by, or converted into his Godhead, so as no longer to retain its proper nature, and possess an understanding and will distinct from those of the Deity. Nay, some speak as if they thought we believed the man, strictly speaking, to be God—the creature to be the Creator. But none of these things is, in the least, supposed or intended. We only believe and wish to establish such a union between this humanity of our Saviour and the Divine essence, through the indwelling of the eternal Word of the Father, as will justify the conduct of the apostles, in applying to Christ so many passages of the Old Testament, manifestly intended of the true God, will account for his bearing Divine names and titles, and having Divine perfections and works ascribed to him, and will lay a proper foundation for that dependence upon him as a Mediator and Redeemer, without which there is no salvation, and for that honour and worship, which, according to the Scriptures, are his due.

2. But it will be objected by those who admit the pre-existence of Christ, and yet deny his Godhead, that “what has been said concerning his humanity does not come up to the point: that he uses a variety of expressions concerning himself, even before his incarnation, which seem incompatible with true and proper Deity; such as—’I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me: I proceeded forth, and came from God, neither came I of myself, but he sent me: I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world, and go to the Father.’“

3. In answer to this, I observe, first, we find expressions, similar to these, used even of the Holy Ghost, whom the Unitarians themselves allow, though not to be a proper person, yet to be truly Divine. Of him Jesus uses the following language. “The Comforter, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things,” John 14:26. Again: “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me,” John 15:26. And again: “I tell you the truth: it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you: but if I depart, I will send him unto you, and when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. When the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that he shall speak; and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and show it unto you: all things that the Father hath are mine; therefore said I, that he shall receive of mine, and show it unto you,” John 16:7-13, 15. Now if these, and such like expressions, when used of the Holy Spirit, do not imply that he is a created being, separate from, and of a nature inferior to the Father, and even to the Son; neither do similar expressions, when used of the Word, necessarily imply that he is a created being separate from, and of a nature inferior to the Father. They may, indeed, imply that the Father is the principle both of the Word and Spirit, the fountain (so to speak) from whence they flow—their source and original. And this is undoubtedly implied in the very names, Father, Son, Word, Spirit, and is what the primitive Church uniformly believed and taught. But as to any thing farther, we cannot fairly infer it from such like expressions, which are manifestly accommodated to our weakness, and must be understood in such a sense as not to militate against other passages which speak so clearly of their divinity.

4. I observe, secondly, If expressions of this kind might be used of the Holy Ghost, they may much more be used of the Logos, who, according to the Scriptures, though the living Word of the Father, and a Son, took upon him the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. Hence being Qeanqwpov, God-man, he both has, and may have things predicated of him which, properly speaking, belong only to the human nature; nay, only to the inferior part thereof, viz. the body. And probably the passages objected above, and others of a similar nature, are to be understood either wholly of the human nature, or if of the Divine, of it only because of its union with the human, in the same sense as when God is said to “lay down his life,” or to “purchase the Church with his own blood.” Add to this, that this Word and Son of the Father, having condescended to become a servant, and having accordingly taken the form of one, we need not wonder to find him acting in character, and not “doing his own will,” nor seeking “his own glory,” but doing his will, and seeking his glory, whose servant he undertook to be, in the work of man’s redemption.

5. I observe, thirdly, Though it seems to me that the most proper name of our Lord before his incarnation, (I mean the name most descriptive of his nature,) is that given him by St. John in the beginning of his Gospel, viz. o logov, the Word, or, as he is called, “The Word of God,” Revelation 19:13; yet it appears from what has been advanced in the former part of this work, that he is also properly called “the Son of God.” Accordingly we read, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made [man] of a woman: God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh: God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world: the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.” It seems plainly implied in these, and such like passages, that he who was “given, sent forth, sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, sent into the world,” &c, was previously God’s Son. This is still more manifest from Hebrews 1:2: “God hath, in these last days, spoken unto us by his Son, by whom he made the worlds.” He was God’s Son, therefore in his preexistent state, when God made the worlds by him. And there are divers other texts, many of which have been quoted above, which speak a similar language. He is indeed called the Son, even in the Old Testament, and that, it seems, without any reference to his future incarnation, as by Agur, “What is his name, and what is his Son’s name, if thou canst tell?” A question this which our Lord answers, when he says, “No man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him:” which words our Lord surely did not speak of his human nature, as if this were such an unsearchable mystery that no one could know it, but of his Divine. Add to this, that it appears, by the passages quoted above from Philo, that the Jews were wont to call the Logos or Word the first born and only begotten Son.

6. Now if this language of our Lord himself, and his inspired apostles and prophets, to whom he revealed himself by his Spirit, be allowed to be proper, then, as Bishop Pearson argues, “we may safely observe, that, in the very name of Father, there is something above that of Son. And some kind of priority or pre-eminence we must ascribe unto him whom we call the first, in respect of him whom we term the second person: and as we cannot but ascribe it, so we must endeavour to preserve it.” And “upon this priority or pre-eminence may safely be grounded the congruity of the Divine mission. We often read that Christ was sent, from whence he bears the name of an apostle himself, as well as those whom he therefore named so, because as the Father sent him, so he sent them. The Holy Ghost is also said to be sent, sometimes by the Father, sometimes by the Son: but we never read that the Father was sent at all, there being an authority in that name which seems inconsistent with this mission. In the parable,—’A certain householder, who planted a vineyard, first sent his servants to the husbandmen, and again other servants; but last of all he sent unto them his son.’ It had been inconsistent, even with the literal sense of an historical parable, as not at all consonant to the rational customs of men, to have said, that last of all the son sent his father to them. So God, placing man in the vineyard of his Church, first sent his servants, the prophets, by whom ‘he spake at sundry times, and in divers manners;’ but ‘in the last days, he sent his Son.’ And it were as incongruous and inconsistent with the Divine generation, that the Son should send the Father into the world.” The Father, then, “is that ‘God who sent forth his Son, made of a woman,’ that God, ‘who hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.’ So the authority of sending is in the Father: which, therefore, ought to be acknowledged, because upon this mission is founded the highest testimony of his love to man; for ‘herein is love,’ saith St. John, ‘not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’

7. “Neither can we be thought to want a sufficient foundation for this priority of the first person in the trinity, if we look upon the numerous testimonies of the ancient doctors of the Church, who have not stuck to call the Father the origin, the cause, the author, the root, the fountain, and the head of the Son.”f83 “By which titles it clearly appeareth, first, that they made a considerable difference between the person of the ‘Father, of whom are all things,’ and the person of the ‘Son, by whom are all things;’ and secondly, that the difference consisteth properly in this,—that as the branch is from the root, and river from the fountain, so the Son is from the Father, and not the Father from the Son, as being what he is from none.” Accordingly we find, “that the name God, taken absolutely, is often in the Scriptures spoken of the Father; as when we read of ‘God sending his own Son;’ of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God;’ and, generally, wheresoever Christ is called the ‘Son of God,’ or the ‘Word of God,’ the name of God is to be taken particularly for the Father, because he is no Son but of the Father. From hence he is styled one God, the true God, the ‘only true God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ:’ which, as it is most true, and so fit to be believed, is also a most necessary truth, and therefore to be acknowledged, for the avoiding multiplicity and plurality of gods. For if there were more than one which were from none, it could not be denied but there were more gods than one. Wherefore this origination in the Divine paternity hath anciently been looked upon as the assertion of the unity; and therefore the Son and Holy Ghost have been believed to be but one God with the Father, because both from the Father, who is one, and so the union of them.”f84

8. The Father, therefore, is the fountain of Deity, and of Divine power: and hence it is, that as the gifts and operations of the Holy Ghost are ascribed to him in Scripture, (because they really are his gifts and operations, in and by the Holy Ghost, his own Spirit,) so, in like manner, respecting the Word, the Son. His manifestations and works are ascribed to the Father, because they really are the Father’s works and manifestations, in and by the Logos, his own Word. If it be asked, “How far are the Word and Spirit distinct, and how do they differ from the Father, and from each other?” I answer, How far they are distinct, and how they differ, is impossible for us fully to say, because it is not told us. We only know that they are manifestly distinguished, and have personal actions attributed to them in the Holy Scriptures; and that the Father is spoken of as the source and principle, both of the Word and Spirit, and is represented as calling creatures into existence, and revealing himself and his will to the intelligent part of those creatures by that Word, and communicating himself and his nature by that Spirit. So that, as he is distinguished from them both, as the sun is distinguished from his rays, and a fountain from its streams; so they are distinguished from each other, the Word chiefly appearing, and, as the express image of the Father’s person, externally revealing the Deity; and the Holy Ghost remaining invisible, and internally communicating him. And, no doubt, there is in the nature of the Godhead a reason for this, though we cannot comprehend it. We have, therefore, only one Jehovah, one living and true God, manifesting himself and his will by his Word, and communicating himself and his nature by his Spirit.

9. Hence we may put the question which the prophet puts, with as much propriety as any Unitarian in the world, “To whom, then, will ye liken God, or what likeness will ye compare unto him?” Or, in the language of the Lord himself, “To whom will ye liken me? or shall I be equal, saith the Holy One?” And yet, with St. Paul and St. John, we may answer, The Word that was in the beginning with God, and was God, “being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” For as Jehovah did not exclude, but comprehend his own Spirit when he said, “To whom will ye liken me, or shall I be equal?” so also he did not exclude, but comprehend his own Word. And when we say God’s Word and Spirit are equal to God, we do not mean to separate them into two other gods, but only to signify that they are not creatures at an infinite distance from true Deity, but really Divine, partaking of the nature of that Godhead from which they proceed, and in which they are comprehended.

10. The Socinians and Arians, indeed, with a view to get rid of the irrefragable argument which the text just referred to furnishes against their scheme, would fain force a very different sense upon it, and translate it, “Being in the form of God, he coveted not after, or did not eagerly catch at an equality with God.” But there are two insuperable objections to this translation, (if it may be called one;) the first is, that the words will not bear it, hghsati arpagmon, signifying not “he coveted not after,” or “did not eagerly catch at,” but simply and only, he thought it not an act of robbery, or any usurpation of another’s right; and the following words, einai isa Qew, meaning only—be equal with God. The second objection to this forced translation is, that it would make the apostle very absurdly represent it as a great instance of Christ’s humility, that he was not as proud as Lucifer; who, (as is supposed,)though highly exalted in the scale of being, yet being a mere creature, and, as such, infinitely inferior to God, manifested insufferable pride in eagerly coveting and catching at an equality with God. Now, surely, if Christ had been a mere creature, the apostle would never have mentioned it as a great proof of his humility, that he did not, like Satan, aspire after an equality with one infinitely above him!

11. We must, therefore, of necessity, abide by the grammatical and literal sense of the words above mentioned; which we may do with the greater satisfaction, having seen it confirmed, in the preceding chapters, by so many testimonies of the same apostle in other places, as well as of other apostles and inspired writers. For surely he who appeared to the patriarchs and prophets, at sundry times, in the character of God; he to whom the apostles, speaking by inspiration of God, applied many passages of the Old Testament, containing proper descriptions of the Most High; he to whom Divine names and titles are given, and Divine attributes are ascribed; he who is represented as the immediate author of all the Divine works, and who has been, is, and is to be worshipped as God—he must be equal with God; or, in other words, he must be God, possessed of true and proper Deity, in union with the Father, whose Word and only begotten Son he is, and from whom he never can be separated.

12. “But if the Word and Son of God be really a Divine person, how could he ‘empty himself,’ (which in this very text he is said to do,) ‘leave the glory’ he had with the Father, or ‘become poor?’” See John 17:3; 2 Corinthians 8:9. I answer, it is easy to conceive that he might do this, as far as these texts signify that he hath done it. They do not say that his nature underwent any change, that his wisdom, power, or love, his holiness, truth, or justice, were either lost or lessened: they only speak of his form or mode of manifestation. This passage in the Epistle to the Philippians being much more particular, is plainly a key to the other two; and all that he asserts is, that (when in the “form of God, and equal with God,” the Godhead of the Father being his Godhead,) he emptied himself, taking the “form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.” So that the emptying of himself, which the apostle speaks of, manifestly consisted in his taking the form of a servant, which form he took when he was made in the likeness of men. It consisted in this, in that though he was the Word and Son of the Father, who had spoke the universe into being, and had manifested himself to the patriarchs and prophets of old, as the Creator, Preserver, and Lord of all, he now appeared in the form of a creature; yea, of a mere and mortal creature,—a creature compassed about with infirmity, liable to pain and misery, and subject to dissolution and decay! And surely this might very properly be termed an emptying himself, a leaving his glory, and becoming poor. For how great the contrast! He had given the law on Sinai, amidst thunder and lightning, storm and tempest, earthquake and devouring fire: he had appeared in glory to the nobles of the children of Israel, when there “was under his feet, as it were, a paved work, of a sapphire stone, and, as it were, the body of heaven in its clearness.” Isaiah had seen him “upon a throne, high and lifted up, when his train filled the temple, and the seraphim cried one to another, Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts! the whole earth is full of his glory!” And now that same Word and Son of the Father dwells in the flesh; in the meek and lowly Jesus, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, despised and rejected of men, having neither form nor comeliness that we should desire him;” whose greatest triumph was to ride into Jerusalem upon a colt, the foal of an ass, amidst the acclamations of children and a few poor people; and who, at last, was executed upon a cross, between two thieves, as a malefactor!

13. “It is a vain imagination (says the author last quoted) that our Saviour then first appeared a servant, when he was apprehended, bound, scourged, and crucified: for they were not all slaves who ever suffered such indignities, or died that death; and when they did, their death did not make, but find them, or suppose them, servants. Beside, our Saviour, in all the degrees of his humiliation, never lived as a servant unto any master on earth. It is true, at first he was subject, but as a son, to his reputed father and undoubted mother. When he appeared in public, he lived after the manner of a prophet, and a doctor sent from God, accompanied with a family, as it were, of his apostles, whose master he professed himself, subject to the commands of no man in that office, and obedient only unto God. The ‘form, then, of a servant,’ which he took upon him, must consist in something distinct from his sufferings or submission unto men, as the condition in which he was when he so submitted and so suffered. In that he was ‘made flesh,’ sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, subject unto all the infirmities and miseries of this life, attending on the sons of men, fallen by the sin of Adam: in that he was ‘made of a woman, made under the law,’ and so obliged to perform the same; which law did so handle the children of God, as that they differed nothing from servants: in that he was born, bred, and lived in a mean, low, and abject condition: ‘as a root out of a dry ground, he had no form nor comeliness; and when men saw him, there was no beauty that they should desire him; but he was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: in that he was thus made man, he took upon him the form of a servant:’ which is not mine but the apostle’s explication; as adding it, not by way of conjunction, in which there might be some diversity, but by way of apposition, which signifieth a clear identity.

14. “And, therefore, it is necessary to observe that our translation of that verse is not only not exact, but very disadvantageous to that truth which is contained in it: for we read it thus, “he made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.” Where we have two copulative conjunctions, neither of which is in the original text, and three distinct propositions, without any dependence of one upon another, whereas all the words together are but an expression of Christ’s exinanition, with an explication showing in what it consisteth; which will clearly appear by this literal translation: “But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.” Where, if any man doubt how Christ emptied himself, the text will satisfy him, “by taking the form of a servant:” if any still question how he took the form of a servant, he hath the apostle’s resolution, by being “made in the likeness of men.” Indeed, after the expression of this exinanition, he goes on with a conjunction, to add another act of Christ’s humiliation: “And being found in fashion as a man,” being already, by exinanition, in the form of a servant, or the likeness of men, “he humbled himself and became (or rather becoming, genomenov uphkoov) obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

15. “As, therefore, his humiliation consisted in his obedience unto death, so his exinanition (or emptying himself) consisted in the assumption of the form of a servant, and that in the nature of man. All which is very fitly expressed by a strange interpretation in the Epistle to the Hebrews. For whereas these words are clearly in the psalmist, “Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire, mine ears hast thou opened,” the apostle appropriateth the sentence to Christ, “When he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me.” Now, since the boring of the ear, under the law, was a note of perpetual servitude; since this was expressed in the words of the psalmist, and changed by the apostle into the preparing of a body, it followeth, that when Christ’s body was first framed, even then did he assume the form of a servant.”

16. As the bishop’s reasoning upon this text is strong and conclusive, and sufficiently refutes the Socinian interpretation, (which supposes that Christ had no existence before he was born of the virgin, and that he was no otherwise in the form of God than as working miracles,) I shall transcribe a paragraph or two more:—”It appeareth out of the same text that Christ was in the form of God before he was in the form of a servant, and consequently before he was made man. For he who is presupposed to be, and to think of that being which he hath, and upon that thought to assume, must have that being before that assumption; but Christ is expressly said to be in the form of God, and being so, to think it no robbery to be equal with God, and, notwithstanding that equality, to take upon him the form of a servant: therefore it cannot be denied but he was before in the form of God. Beside, he was not in the form of a servant but by emptying himself, and all exinanition necessarily presupposeth a precedent plenitude; it being as impossible to empty any thing which hath no fulness, as to fill any thing which hath no emptiness. But the fulness which Christ had, in respect whereof, assuming the form of a servant, he is said to empty himself, could be in nothing else but the form of God in which he was before. Wherefore, if the assumption of the form of a servant be cotemporary with his exinanition, if that exinanition necessarily presupposeth a plenitude as indispensably antecedent to it; if the form of God be also coeval with that precedent plenitude; then must we confess Christ was in the form of God before he was in the form of a servant.

17. “Again: it is as evident from the same scripture, that Christ was as much in the form of God as in the form of a servant, and did as really subsist in the Divine nature as in the nature of man. For he was so in the form of God, as thereby to be ‘equal with God.’f85 But no other form beside the essential, which is the Divine nature itself, could infer an equality with God. ‘To whom will you liken me, and make me equal, saith the Holy One?’ There can be but one infinite, eternal, and independent Being; and there can be no comparison between that and whatsoever is finite, temporal, and depending. He, therefore, who did truly think himself equal with God, as being in the form of God, must be conceived to subsist in that one infinite, eternal, and independent nature of God. Again: the phrase, ‘in the form of God,’ not elsewhere mentioned, is used by the apostle with a respect unto that other, the ‘form of a servant,’ exegetically [explanatorily] continued ‘in the likeness of men;’ and the respect of one unto the other is so necessary, that if the ‘form of God’ be not real and essential as the ‘form of a servant,’ or the likeness of man, there is no force in the apostle’s words, nor will his argument be fit to prove any great degree of humiliation upon the consideration of Christ’s exinanition. But by the form is certainly understood the true condition of a servant, and by the likeness infallibly meant the real nature of man, nor doth the fashion in which he was found destroy, but rather assert, the truth of his humanity. And, therefore, as sure as Christ was really and essentially man, of the same nature with us, in whose similitude he was made, so certainly was he also really and essentially God, of the same nature and being with him, in whose form he did subsist. Seeing then we have clearly evinced, from the express words of St. Paul, that Christ was in the form of a servant as soon as he was made man, that he was in the form of God before he was in the form of a servant, that the form of God in which he subsisted doth as truly signify the Divine as the likeness of man the human nature; it necessarily followeth that Christ had a real existence before he was begotten of the virgin, and that the being which he had was the Divine essence, by which he was truly, really, and properly God.” (Pearson on the Creed, pp. 122, 123.)