't give tfafe Sioki ¦'¦¦¦'ii i for. the fatttutbtg of & College fab ffas Coloiy" > Y^LE«¥JMH¥IEIES2ir¥o Gift of 190 f CHRISTUS MEDIATOR Christus Mediator BY CHARLES ELLIOTT, D.D. PROFESSOR OF HEBREW IN LAFAYETTE COLLEGE EASTON, PA. f A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON 51 East 10,b Street, Near Broadway 1891 Copyright, 1890, By Charles Elliott. iHntbrat'tjr press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. PREFACE. ' I ""HE author offers this little volume to the ¦*- public with the hope that it may prove to be of some use to his brethren in the ministry and to theological students in their meditations on the Person and offices of our Blessed Redeemer. His labor — which was undertaken more to fill up va cant time than to produce an elaborate treatise — will be amply rewarded if it promotes in any de gree the honor of Him who is — " Of all creation first, Begotten Son, divine similitude, In whose conspicuous count'nance, without cloud, Made visible, th' Almighty Father shines." THE AUTHOR. Chicago, October, 1890. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. Pages Fundamental doctrine of Christianity. — Origin of the term "Mediator."— How used in the New Testa ment Groundlessness of objections against the mediation of Jesus Christ. — Bishop Butler Teach ing of Revelation on the subject. — Aim of the treatise .... 13-16 $art I. CHAPTER I. THE WORD. Prologue of Saint John's Gospel. — The Greek term "Logos." — Classical usage. — How used by Saint John. — Philo. — Townsend. — Dr. Dorner. — Augus tine. — Indications in the Old Testament of a plurality of persons in the Divine Essence., — Meaning of the phrase " In the beginning." — "The Word was with God." — "The Word was God."— Relation of the Logos to the world. — The Logos, the Mediator of the physical, the intellectual, and the spiritual world. — The term " darkness."— Hymn I7~49 o CONTENTS. CHAPTER II. THE GOD-MAN. Pages The phrase "was made flesh." — Meaning of the term "flesh." — The incarnation. — Critical objections. — Philosophical objections. — Controversies concerning the Logos. — Gnosticism. — Doketism. — Ebionitism. — Monarchianism. — Modalists. — Controversies con cerning the God-man. — Arianism. — Council of Nice. — Apollinarianism. — Nestorianism. — Eutychian- ism. — Distinction between nature and person. — Duality of the Nature. — Unity of the Person. — Anhypostasia. — Council of Constantinople. — Athanasian Creed. — Council of Ephesus. — Council of Chalcedon. — Chalcedonian Creed. — Principal Christological errors. — Term '• Adoptio." — Elipan- dus of Toledo. — Felix of Urgella. — Council of Re- gensburg. — Synod at Frankfort-on-the-Maine. — Peter Lombard. — Synod of Tours. — Albert the Great.— Thomas Aquinas. — The subject of Christology passes into a new phase. — Luther and Zuingli. — Discussion concerning the ubiquity of Christ's body. — Brentz. — Chemnitz. — Formula of Concord. — Re formed Christology. — Kenosis. — Four distinct types. — Dr. Bruce. — Thomasius. — Gess. — Ebrard. — Martensen. — Bibliotheca Sacra. —John Milton Wil liams, A.M. — Dr. Shedd. — Impeccability cf Christ. — The perfecting of Christ. — The question whether Christ would have become incarnate had man never sinned 50-98 CONTENTS. 9 fart II. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. Pages Christ came into the world as the Mediator between God and man. — Qualified for the functions of his mediatorial office. — Covenant of redemption. — Cov enant of grace. — Christ's mediatorial office viewed under the three aspects of Prophet, Priest, and King ...... 99-102 CHAPTER II. CHRIST THE PROPHET. Meaning of the term " prophet." — Christ is " that prophet that should come." — He spoke with au thority. — Christ executes his prophetic office person ally and directly, mediately by the Holy Spirit and by the Christian ministry 103-108 CHAPTER III. CHRIST THE PRIEST. Priest a mediator in religion. — Sacrifice and the expia tory priest in existence long before Aaron. — Levitical priesthood. — Priestly office of Christ administered directly. — His priestly work treated under two heads, atonement and intercession. — Dr. Shedd . . 109-115 IO CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. CHRIST THE KING. Pages Christ's answer to Pilate. — The man whose name is the Branch. — The mediatorial dominion of Christ necessary and fitting. — Reality of Christ's me diatorial dominion. — His kingdom has a visible as well as an invisible form. — Universality of Christ's mediatorial dominion. — Its perpetuity. — I Cor. xv. 24-28 . . .... 1 16-132 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. ' I ''HE fundamental doctrine of Christianity is the doctrine of a Mediator between God and man. This Mediator is the Lord Jesus Christ, who executes, in His mediatorial character, the offices of a prophet, of a priest, and of a king. The word "mediator" is of Latin origin, and signifies one who acts between two parties. The corresponding Greek word is /iecrm??, which occurs in Gal. iii. 19, 20; 1 Tim. ii. 5; Heb. viii. 6, ix. 15, xii. 24. This word, which is unknown in Attic Greek, occurs in Philo, Josephus, Polybius, Diodo- rus, and Lucian. In the New Testament, fieo-'m)<; is used in two senses, — a mediator (1 Tim. ii. 5), and one who guarantees (Heb. viii. 6).1 In the first passage 1 Cremer's " Biblio-Theological Lexicon," second edition, sub juecrfT^s. 14 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. the man Christ Jesus is called the one mediator {go-between) between God and man. In the sec ond he is styled " the mediator of a better cove nant," the conditions of which he is pledged to fulfil. In Hebrews vii. 22 Christ's relation to the covenant is expressed by the term eyyvos ; in viii. 6, by fieo-Crr)?, which is a more general term. Both notions are united in peaiyyvos. "The appella tions eyyvos and fieakrj^ point to a sphere beyond that of the operations of the Levitical priesthood. The ' mediator ' of the Old Covenant was not Aaron, but Moses. The Levitical priesthood was itself a mere product of that covenant, not its basis, — serving to maintain the covenant relation, and helping to remove disturbances thereof, but no more ; whereas Jesus Christ is both founder and finisher, as well as conservator, of the New Cove nant, as the e'771/0? and /ieo-tV^? of which he stands in an antitypical relation, not to Aaron only, but also and specially to Moses." 1 Bishop Butler says : — " There is not anything relating to Christianity which has been more objected against than the mediation of Christ, in some or other of its parts. Yet upon thorough 1 Delitszch on Hebrews, Commentary on chap. viii. 6. Edin burgh : T. & T. Clark. 1876. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 1 5 consideration, there seems nothing less liable to it. For the whole analogy of nature removes all imagined pre sumption against the general notion of a Mediator be tween God and man. For we find all living creatures are brought into the world, and their life in infancy is preserved, by the instrumentality of others ; and every satisfaction of it, some way or other, is bestowed by the like means. So that the visible government which God exercises over the world is by the instrumentality and mediation of others. How far his invisible government be or be not so, it is impossible to determine at all by reason." 1 Revelation teaches us that the world is in a state of ruin ; and that the only Deliverer from this ruin is the Lord Jesus Christ. " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John iii. 16). "And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation ; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them " (2 Cor. v. 18, 19). For this end the Eternal " Word became flesh, and dwelt among us full of grace and truth " 1 Analogy, part ii. chap. v. l6 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. (John i. 14). "For verily not of angels doth he take hold, but he taketh hold of the seed of Abra ham. Wherefore it behoved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren " (Heb. ii. 16, 17, R. V.). It is the aim of this short treatise to exhibit Christ as our Mediator, — as the Logos who be came flesh, as the God-man, with two natures in one personality, as our Prophet revealing to us the will of God, as our Priest atoning for our sins, and as our King ruling and defending us. Of course, a treatise so brief can present these sub jects only in outline. But if it shall incite the kind reader to a fuller and profounder study of the character of our blessed Redeemer, the author will be sufficiently rewarded for the imperfect labor bestowed upon it. PART I. » CHAPTER I. THE WORD [6 /I0709]. ' I ""HE Apostle John begins his Gospel : " In the beginning 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 anything made that hath been made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness ; and the darkness comprehended it not" (i. 1-5, R. V.). The Greek term " Logos," rendered " Word," in the first verse of this prologue, signifies, in classic Greek, the word or outward form by which the inward thought is expressed, and the inward thought itself.1 1 Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon, s. v. seventh edition. 2 1 8 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. Plato uses it in a threefold sense, namely, — utterance, order of arrangement of the parts of a whole, power of assigning differentia.1 In the classics the word never signifies the sub jective faculty of reason, but the reason to be given objectively of any thing or things. The Apostle John uses it as though its meaning was well known to his readers. In his prologue, it evidently means a Person, not an abstraction, nor a personification, — not the speaking word of God once manifested to the prophets, but after wards fully declared in Christ. " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (ver. i); and the Word be came flesh" (ver. 14) can be predicated only of a Person.2 Attempts have been made to trace the meaning of the term " Logos," as used in the prologue of Saint John's Gospel, to Neo-Platonism, one of the ablest expounders of which was Philo Judaeus, born at Alexandria, some years before the Chris tian era. The Apostle John may have been ac quainted with his writings, and with the doctrines 1 Day's Analysis of Plato, p. 387. London: Bell & Daldy. 1870. 2 Alford's Greek Testament, Commentary on John i. THE WORD. 19 of his school ; but there is a wide fundamental dif ference between the Apostle and this Neo-Platonic philosopher. Philo belonged to those philosophers among the Alexandrine Jews who, tempered by intercourse with the Greeks, sought a conciliating mean be tween the religion of their fathers and the elements of Hellenic culture ; they had no wish to renounce Judaism. Philo " calls the Jews priests and proph ets for all mankind. He was conscious of the re lation to universal history lying at the ground of the particular in the history of his nation ; saw how the theocratic people, as such, had a mission to fulfil which regarded entire humanity. He de scribes them as a priestly people, whose calling it was to invoke the blessing of God on all mankind. He says, with this reference, that the offering pre sented for the whole people was meant for the entire race of man." : Philo " assumes that the Divinity and Matter are the two first principles existing from eternity. Agreeably to the principles of Plato, he charac terizes them thus : the Divinity as a Being, Real, Infinite, and Immutable, incomprehensible to any 1 Neander's Church History, vol. i. p. 52. Boston: Crocker & Brewster. London : Wiley & Putnam. 1851. 20 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. human understanding (ov) ; Matter as non-exist ing (fj,fj op'), but having received from the Divinity a form and life. He represents the Deity by cer tain Oriental figures as the Primitive Life, as an Infinite Intelligence, from, whom are derived by .irradiation all finite intelligences. In the soul of the Divinity are concentrated the ideas of all things possible. This logos of the Divine Being — the focus of all ideas (X0709 ivhiaOeros) — is in fact the Ideal World, and called also the Son of God, - or the Archangel. He is the image of God, the type after which God by his creative power (\0709 TTpoQopiicos) formed the world such as it is pre sented to our senses." l Townsend sums up the particular terms and doc trines concerning the Logos found in Philo. An attentive consideration of them will discover many inconsistencies. . He frequently confounds all the personal qualities and attributes assigned to the Logos with a Logos so purely spiritual, or so merely conceptual, that it could be capable only of being manifested to the spiritual or intellectual part of man. He asserts that the Divine Word would not assume a visible form or representation 1 Tennemann's Manual of the History of Philosophy, pp. 170, 171. London : Henry G. Bohn. 1852. THE WORD. 21 (t'Sea), and that it was not to be reckoned among the objects known by sense.1 Dr. Dorner remarks : " With by far too much confidence has it' often been asserted ' that the ' Logos of Philo is an individual essence, occupy ing a middle place between God and the world, — a distinct hypostasis from God . •. ¦ Against an in- : dividual hypostasis he speaks most decidedly when he says, ' Nothing Divine communicates itself by ' means of separation; it only extends itself.' In so far, then, as the Logos is Divine it is only the' extended or the self-extending God. But : the • Logos has nothing in itself not Divine; matter (owia) is not created by the Logos, — he only conforms it to himself like a seal; and as this is also numberless times ascribed in the general to God, the Logos can be regarded in no other light than as God Himself viewed under a definite aspect. " Where does Philo show the least anxiety to reconcile his doctrine of the Logos with the unity of God? And yet this he could hardly have 1 The New Testament arranged in Historical and Chronologi cal Order, with Copious Notes. Note 5, part i. Boston: Perkins and Marvin. 1837. Mr. Townsend gives the references to Philo's Works, with the Scripture parallels. 22 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. avoided had he co-ordinated the Logos with God as a hypostatic essence." 1 Augustine contrasts the Logos of Platonism with the Logos of the Apostle John in his " Confes sions." He says he read in some Platonic books translated from Greek into Latin " that in the be ginning 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 anything made that hath been made. In him was life ; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not. The soul of man bears testimony concerning the light, though it is not the light itself. But that the Word of God — God — is the true light, which lighteth every man coming into the world ; that the world was made by him, and the world knew him not; that he came unto his own, and his own received him not; but that to as many as received him gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, — there I read not. I read in these books also that God — 1 History of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, vol. i. Introduction, pp. 22, 23. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1884. THE WORD. 23 the Word — was not born of flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. But that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us I read not in them. I found in them, by diligent search, that the Son is in the form of the Father; that he did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, because he was his equal by nature ; and I found this expressed in various ways. But that he made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a ser vant, and was made in the likeness of men; and that, being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name ; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth ; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, — these books do not contain. That he remains unchangeably thine only begotten and co-eternal Son before and above all times; that souls receive from his ful ness that they may be happy ; and that they are renewed by the participation of wisdom dwelling in himself, that they may be wise, — are contained 24 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. in these books. But that in due time he died for the ungodly; and that thou didst not spare thine only Son, but didst deliver him up for us all, — are not found in them." 1 It has been already remarked that the Apostle John uses the term " Logos " as though its mean ing was well known to his readers. That his use of it cannot be traced to Neo-Platonism has been briefly shown. Whence, then, did he derive the term? And why did it not require explanation? An answer to both these questions will be found in the Old Testament and in the Jewish writings. There are many indications in the Old Testa ment of a plurality of persons in one Divine Es sence. In Genesis (i. i) Moses, describing the Divine action in creation, joins a singular verb with a plural noun. It is said that the plural noun is expressive, according to Hebrew usage, of maj esty. But is it expressive of this merely? This interpretation will hardly account for the use of the plural in verse 26, " And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Do these words represent a single Person in colloquy with himself ? That is not a very reasonable sup- 1 S. Aurelii Augustini Confessiones, lib. vii. c. ix. Lipsiae : Sumtibus et Typis Caroli Tauchnitii. 1837. THE WORD. 25 position; for plural pronouns in Hebrew refer to actual plurals. Do they represent the Creator ad dressing angels ? Then what is the image com mon to God and the angels ? They seem rather to point to a plurality of persons in the unity of one agent.1 This view suits better than any other the statement in Gen. iii. 22, " And the Lord said, Behold, the mam is become as one of us" (R. V.). The sacred writer uses the plural pronoun in Gen. xi. 7, which represents the Lord saying, " Go to, Jet us go down, and there confound their language." In the priestly blessing (Numbers vi. 24-26) the priest repeated the holy name three times, — " The Lord bless thee and keep thee : The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee : The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." This is called putting the name of the Lord upon Israel (ver. 27). The name expresses his nature. From these obscure allusions to personal dis tinctions it is natural to pass to those appearances 1 Liddon's Bampton Lectures for 1866, lect. ii. 26 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. which are known as " theophanies." God mani fested himself in a more concrete form in the Malach, — generally called Malach Jehovah, and Malach Ha'lohim. In Genesis xvi. 7, the Malach Jehovah ap peared to Hagar, and said, " I will multiply thy seed" (ver. 10). In verse 11 the Malach Jeho vah is spoken of in the third person; but in verse 13 Hagar called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, " Thou God seest me" (A. V.). Among the three men who appeared to Abra ham (chap, xviii.) one is distinguished as Jehovah (ver. 20, 26) from the two others, who are called Malachim, and are said (chap. xix. 13) to be sent by Jehovah. In Genesis xxii. the Malach Jehovah calls to Abraham from heaven as if he were God himself (ver. 11, 14, 15-18). In Genesis xxiv. 7, compared with verse 40, Abraham says to his servant, " Jehovah, the God of heaven . . . shall send his angel [Malach] be fore thee." Here the Malach is distinguished from Jehovah, as in the theophany at Bethel (Gen. xxviii. 12 ct seq.). But in Genesis xxxi. 11-13, the Malach Ha'lohim that appeared to Jacob says, " I am the God of Bethel." THE WORD. 27 In Genesis xlviii. 15, 16, Jacob blessed Joseph and his sons, and said : " The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which hath fed me all my life long unto this day, the angel [Malach] which hath redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." In .Exodus iii. 2, the Malach Jehovah appears in the flame of the burning bush to Moses. In verse 4 Jehovah and Elohim are substituted for him ; and in verse 6 he says, " I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." In Exodus xiii. 21, it is said, "Jehovah went be fore Israel; " in xiv. 19, we read it was the Malach Haflohim. In Exodus xxxiii. 2, Jehovah declares, " I will send an angel [Malach] before thee," — whom he calls in xxxii. 34, " mine angel" (Malach). The captain of the Lord's host appeared to Joshua (v. 14); and we may infer from verse 15 that he was the same person who appeared to Moses (Ex. iii. 2). He is probably the same per son who gave Jericho into Joshua's hand, and who is called Jehovah (vi. 2). In Judges (ii. 1-5), the Malach Jehovah says: " I brought you up out of Egypt; " he commands 28 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. to curse Meroz (v. 23) ; he appeared to Gideon (vi. n); he is called Jehovah (ver. 14); and Gideon built an altar to him (ver. 24). Hosea, alluding to Jacob's wrestling with the angel (Gen. xxxii. 24-31), says: " he had power with God : yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed" (Hosea xii. 3, 4). In Zachariah, i. 12, the Malach Jehovah ap pears interceding for Israel before Jehovah; but in chapter iii. he appears to take the place of Jehovah himself.1 Different views have been held concerning the Malach Jehovah. In the early ages of the Church, and also in later times, " an angel in the more nar row sense is to be understood by the Malach ; that is, a finite spirit under subjection to God, which accomplished the Divine command in the cases mentioned." A second view is " that the Malach Jehovah is a self-presentation of Jehovah entering into the sphere of the creature, which is one in essence with Jehovah; and is yet again different from him. This view has been put forward in three different modifications. According to the first of these, 1 Oehler's Theology of the O. T., vol. i. pp. 188-190; com pare Liddon's Bampton Lectures, lect. ii. THE WORD. 29 the Malach is the Logos, the second person of the Godhead, in the sense of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. According to the second modifi cation, the angel of Jehovah is a created being; with which, however, the uncreated Logos was personally connected. According to the third, the Malach is not anything hypostatical, but, only an unsubstantial manifestation of God; a momentary descent of .God into visibility ; a mission of God , (here Malach is taken in its original abstract mean ing), which again returns into the Divine Being." J Oehler remarks " that no one of the various views quite does justice to- all the passages; that the doctrine of the Malach in the Old Testament vacillates in a peculiar manner between a modalis- tic and an hypostatic conception of the angel, so that it seems impossible to bring the matter to a definite, intelligible expression. But the matter has a different aspect from the standpoint of the New Testament. From this (see especially 1 Cor. x. 4), it is the Logos, the son of God, through whom revelations to Israel are mediated, and who there fore works, in the Malach. But in the New Testa ment, the son of God is nowhere so identified with the Malach as if his incarnation had been pre- 1 Oehler's Theology of the Old Testament, vol. i. pp. 191-194. 30 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. ceded by his permanently becoming an angel; but the Logos, according to the New Testament view, works in all the other forms of old covenant revelation in just the same way as in the form of the Malach." 1 In the Old Testament, Wisdom is represented as being employed in the creation and preservation of the universe. Job asks: "Where shall wisdom (Heb. the wisdom) be found? " and replies to his own question (xxviii. 12-28). It is found in God, and communicated to man. Proverbs iii. 19 repre sents it as an attribute of God; and in viii. 22-31 it is personified. It " was set up from everlast ing, from the beginning, or ever the earth was " (ver. 23). The whole passage reads as though it were the language of a real person, and not that of a poetical personification. Ecclesiasticus, one of the Apocryphal Books, presents the view — derived of course from the Old Testament Writings — held by some of the thinkers of the Jewish Church. Jesus, the son of Sirach, says : " Wisdom hath been created before all things, and the understand ing of prudence from everlasting " (Ecclesiasticus, i. 4). " She hath built an everlasting foundation 1 Oehler's Theology of the Old Testament, vol. i. p. 195. THE WORD. 31 with men, and she shall continue with their seed " (ver. 15. See the whole chapter). "Wisdom shall praise herself, and shall glory in the midst of her people. In the congregation of the Most High shall she open her mouth, and triumph before his power. I came out of the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth as a cloud. I dwelt in high places, and my throne is in a cloudy pillar" (xxiv. 1-4 et seq). In the Holy Scriptures the creative power of God is manifested by the Word of Jehovah. " By the word of the Lord (Jehovah) were the heavens made " (Ps. xxxiii. 6). By it he governs the world (Ps. cxlvii. 15). " Among the Palestinian Jews the Chaldee para- phrasts almost always represent God as acting, not immediately, but through the mediation of the Memra, or Word." 1 In Ecclesiasticus the Word is the organ of crea tion (xliii. 26). In xxiv. 3, Wisdom says, " I came out of the mouth of the Most High ; " and in i. 5, it is said, " The Word of God Most High is the fountain of Wisdom." In the Book of Wisdom the Word is personified (xviii. 15). 1 Liddon's Bampton Lectures for 1866, lect. ii. 32 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. It is evident from the passages cited that the Apostle John had no need of going outside of the Jewish Scriptures and other literature for the use of the term "Word" (Logos). It was found in them ready to his hand. Ewald remarks : — " Now all such ideas as Messiah, Co-regent, and in deed Son of God, do not really conduct to that of a powerful being thus necessarily finding its basis in God, and inseparable from him. These ideas have too much a merely external existence, without any necessary con nection with the idea of God, — as in fact they were not used at first of the Messiah, but only transferred from historical persons to him above all others, and then, it is true, probably used of him alone. But at that time the idea of the Word of God, or more briefly the Word, had become of far greater significance ; for, long before, the great prophets, from Moses onward through so many centuries, had made an established place for this Word in the world, — indeed, had glorified it for all time : but since they had passed away it was immortalized more and more in the world in an outward form, also in the Sacred Scriptures, as the great, imperishable, divine power, and as a visible representation of the Invisible himself, as the bright light of the righteous, the strong weapon against the world and worldliness, the never- failing consolation of the despairing. Now when this Word, which had thus become a great spiritual power, was further reflected upon, men necessarily found in the THE WORD. 33 end that it was not confined to the living prophets or to the Scriptures. It was seen, according to Gen. i., as early as the Creation, to be the first thing that proceeded from God ; and men learnt to consider it with regard to its significance for the whole world, inasmuch as no contradiction can exist between the Divine speech and thought and the creation itself ; but the latter is only like the execution and embodiment of the former. Con ceived thus as the revelation of God himself, — the bright and distinct revelation of his mind and his mys terious inner nature, — it was properly regarded as the most immediate Divine power, and as an eternal, mys terious, and yet intelligible existence, wholly inseparable from God's complete being. But it then coincided sub stantially in this respect with Wisdom ; so that everything Divine which had previously been surmised and enthusi astically uttered by the profoundest minds of quite a differ ent school (namely, that of the ancient genuinely Hebrew philosophers) concerning Wisdom as a purely Divine power could now be transferred to the Word with equal, and, indeed, precisely in Israel in many respects, with greater propriety."1 The conclusion may be safely drawn from the testimonies that have been adduced that the doc trine of the Logos was familiar to the Jews in the time of the Apostle John. It was found in their 1 History of Israel, vol. vi. p. 117. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1883. 3 34 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. Scriptures and in the Chaldee paraphrasts. The doctrine had been amalgamated with Platonism by Jewish philosophers; and the Apostle probably intended his prologue as a protest against the Judaeo-Alexandrine gnosis transmitted to us in the writings of Philo.1 The phrase " In the beginning " denotes pre- temporality,2 and is equivalent in meaning to the expressions irpb tov alwvos ; . . . iv apxfi ^P0 T°v rrjv yrjv Troirjaai (from everlasting ... or ever the earth was, — Prov. viii. 23, R. V.); wpb tov tov Koo-p,ov elvai (before the world was, — John xvii. 5) ; and 7Tjoo /ca,Ta/3o\r)<; Koafiov (before the foundation of the world, — Eph. i. 4). "In the beginning" (Gen. i. 1) is not a parallel in signification, for it marks the beginning of time.3 " 'Ev apx§ Vv 0vas in the beginning) is not said of an act done iv apyjl (in the beginning, as in Gen. i. 1), but of a state existing iv ap-^fl, and therefore without be ginning itself."4 " The Word was with God " (6 Aoyos tjv irpb<; tov ©eov). The Apostle says the Word was irpbs, 1 Neander's History of Dogmas, vol. i. p. 134. London : Henry G. Bohn. 1858. 2 Vorzeitlichkeit. Meyer, in loc. 8 Den Anfangsmoment der Zeit selbst bedeutet. 4 Alford, in loco. THE WORD. 35 with, not iv, in} This, in the words of Words worth, shows " the Word's Eternity, and that the Son was not circumscribed by any limits of space; and that he was without time, but never without God. . . . Hence we may refute Sabellius, who said that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are merely one Person, who showed himself in various modes ; for _ the Evangelist clearly distinguishes between the Person of God the Father and the Person of God the Son." 2 " And the Word was God " (jcai @eo? rjv 6 .4oyo?). The form of this clause is, in the Greek, parallel with that of " God is a Spirit " (Tlvev^a 6 ©eo?, John iv. 24). The use of the article before Logos shows that Logos is the subject of the verb was ; and its omission before @eo? plainly indicates that @eo? must not be taken for o @eo?, the Father in Person, but as implying God in substance and essence. It is not synonymous with theios (deiot), nor is it to be rendered a God ; but as in o Xo'709 o-ap^ iyeveTo, adp% expresses the state into which the Divine Word entered by a definite act, so in 1 For the meaning of irp&s with the ace , see Winer's N. T. Grammar, p. 405. Andover, 1869. See also Gesner Harrison's Greek Prepositions. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott. i860. 2 Wordsworth's Greek Testament, in loc. 36 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. @eo? ?jv, 0eo? expresses that essence which was iv apXV> — that he was very God.1 The first verse asserts the eternity of the Logos (in the beginning was the Word [Logos]), his personality ("the Word was with God"), and his divinity (" the Word was God "). The second verse sums up these three ideas in one. The two verses, taken together, contain the ante-mundane history of the Logos. The third verse declares the relation of the Logos to the world.2 The Apostle now proceeds from the immanent Word (Aoyos tvhiaderoi) to the revealed Word (Abyos irpo$opt,ito%). " The first manifestation of the Logos ad extra is the Crea tion." 3 The Logos was not only " in the begin ning" (iv apx?))> but also "the beginning" (17 apxv, Apoc. xxi. 6) ; " the beginning of the Creation of God" (Apoc. iii. 14; compare Col. i. 18), that is, the causative principle of Creation. "All things were made by Him." UavTa — all things — differs from to iravTa, all the things (2 Cor. v. 18). The first is unlimited; the second indicates a special and determined totality, namely, the all things which have become new (2 Cor. v. > See Alford, in loo. 2 Appendix A. 3 Lange's Com. in loc. THE WORD. 37 > 17). EyeveTo (were made) forms a contrast to rjv, verses 1 and 2, and signifies the passing from non-existence into existence; whereas fjv denotes the underived, the eternal (irplv Aftpacifi yeveaOai iya> el/j,i, John viii. 58). The part of the Logos in creation is indicated by the preposition Sid, which, in one of its uses, denotes with the genitive the instrument (whether animate or inanimate) as that through which the effect, as it were, passes (comp. 2 Peter i. 7), that which intervenes between the volition and the deed. It is often applied to God himself (Rom. xi. 36 ; Gal. i. 1 ; Heb. ii. 10), and hence implies no inferiority on the part of the Logos. The relation of God, the Father, to the world is different from that of the Logos here indicated by hid, and is clearly expressed in 1 Cor. viii. 6: " Yet to us there is one God the Father, of (e'D whom are all things, and we unto Him ; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through (Sid) whom are all things, and we through him." The Logos derives everything from the Father, while at the same time, everything that comes into being receives existence from Him. Between the Father and Him there is community of action, but distinction of office. 38 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. The second clause of the verse repeats the first in negative form. It excludes all excep tions. EyeveTo and yeyovev are not to be ex plained as "a redundancy peculiar to John's style." The perfect yeyovev implies the present, and e'ye- vero is the aorist (past). The clause may, there fore be rendered: "There is not a single thing which exists in all creation which was not brought into existence (iyeveTo) by the Word." In this there is neither redundancy nor tautology. Whether the phrase not anything was intended to repudiate the Platonic idea of eternal matter (#A.?7) is uncertain. According to the Platonic idea, matter did not belong to the things that be came (iyeveTo), or were made. Primitive matter, in the Platonic sense, was eternal, and was con sidered the undetermined condition of every par ticular thing. The Christian doctrine is that it was created ; and hence it comes under the iravra (all things), whether John had any reference to the Platonic doctrine or not. " In him was life " (ver. 4). This does not mean merely spiritual life, or the recovery of blessed ness. The sense is that the Logos is the ground and source of all life, — physical, moral, spiritual, and eternal. Without its constant, vivifying ac- THE WORD. 39 tivity, all things would cease to exist. He " up holds all things by the word of his power " (Heb. i. 3). This was given to him by the Father: " For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself" (John v. 26). " And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son " (1 John v. 11). The Logos, therefore, is the mediator of the physical, the intellectual, and the spiritual worlds, giving birth and movement to the whole universe. " And the life was the light of men." Light and life are closely connected ideas, and have their antitheses in death and darkness. Milton addresses light as the " Offspring of Heaven*, first-born, Or of th' Eternal Co-eternal beam." a "God is light" (1 John i. 5). "This is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you " (ibid.). Light is His garment (Ps. civ. 2). " He is the Father of Lights " (Jas. i. 17). He " dwells in light unapproachable " (1 Tim. vi. 1 Paradise Lost, book iii. 40 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. 1 6). The Son, the Logos, is the effulgence (d-nav- yaap,a) of the Father's glory (Heb. i. 3). " In him all his Father shone, Substantially expressed." 1 The question has been asked : " Does the imper fect was refer to a real period of history, and if so to which?" Godet remarks: "Bruckner and Hengstenberg see in it only the expression of an ideal possibility; " and observes: " Such a purely hypothetical sense would not be in harmony either with the force of the imperfect, which denotes a real point in a period of indefinite duration, or with the historical character of all the preceding verbs. These words, therefore, necessarily refer, according to John's view, to a real period of history. Now, from the connection of ver. 4 with ver. 3, this period can be no other than that which immediately succeeded the act of creation. The subject in question, therefore, is that first spring-time during which the Word, meeting as yet with no obstacle in the universe could make it fruitful by communicating to it, according to the capacity of each of those beings which composed it, the riches of his own life. This magnificent starting-point in a development soon broken revealed the normal state, the essential relation.2 1 Paradise Lost, book iii. 2 Godet's Com. on St. John's Gospel, in he. THE WORD. 41 "The normal state described in the first proposition," continues Godet, " found its highest expression in the being who was the masterpiece of creation, namely man. In this privileged creature, made in the image of the Word himself, life developed in the form of light}- This word, according to Godet, " denotes, in the language of John, the knowledge of moral good, or moral good fully conscious of itself in the living beings who realize it." 2 The two terms, " life " and "light" convey in Dr. G.'s opinion, "an allusion to the tree of life and to that of knowledge."3 " After having eaten of the former," continues Dr. G., " man would have been called to feed on the second. John initiates us into the real essence of those primordial and mysterious facts, and gives us in this verse, as it were, the philosophy of Paradise." 4 Dr. G. thinks that verse 4 cannot refer to the action of the Logos in the sphere of prophecy among the theocratic people ; for such a view, in his opinion, is excluded by the phrase " of men " (tcov dv9 pdiTrwv) , which requires a universal human application.5 The word " men," it is true, designates 1 Godet's Com. on Saint John's Gospel, in loo. 2 Ibid. s Ibid. * Ibid. 6 Ibid. 42 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. here a class, not individuals. The whole species, created in the image of God, stood in a special re lation to the Word. The Jews of course were included. All men received intellect and reason from the Word that created them. It is not easy to see why the period of history intimated in verse 4 should be limited to " that which immediately succeeded the act of creation." The Logos created the world, and was in it, from the Creation, " upholding all things by the word of his power" (Heb. i. 3 ; comp. Col. i. 16, 17). We find in history traces of the consciousness of religious truth in the heathen world. Justin Martyr writes: "The Logos is the Eternal Revela tion of the Divine Essence, the fountain of all truth for all men. In the human soul is some thing allied to the Logos, — a seed of it implanted (the X070? aTrepfiaTiKo^), — in which the Revelation of the Logos finds a point of connection." " All persons," according to Justin Martyr, " who fol lowed the voice of the Logos stood in unconscious connection with him. Hence they steadfastly per sisted in conflict against the world, and were fore runners of Christians before Christianity." J Justin 1 Neander's History of Christian Dogmas, vol. i. p. 141. Lon don : Henry G. Bohn. 1S58. THE WORD. 43 Martyr classes together Abraham and Socrates. He affirmed that the Aoyos, previously to his in carnation, had revealed himself to the philoso phers of antiquity.1 Justin Martyr was a disciple of the eclectic sys tem of philosophy. Many of the Fathers of the Church, especially the Grecian, considered Phi losophy to be in harmony with the Christian reli gion (or at least partially so), inasmuch as both were derived from one common source. This source of truth in the heathen philosophy was, according to Justin Martyr, derived from Internal Revelation by the ^0709 and Tradition.2 What ever value may be attached to the opinion of Jus tin Martyr, who was not entirely orthodox in the strict sense of that term, we may entertain without error the opinion that all the great lights of the heathen world — such as Zoroaster, Soc rates, and Plato — were broken lights of the Divine Logos. "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them ; for God hath showed it unto them" (Rom. i. 19). "For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature 1 Tennemann's Man. of the Hist, of Philosophy, p. 198. Lon don : Henry G. Bohn. 1852. See Appendix B. 2 Ibid., p. 196. 44 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their con science also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one an other " (Rom. ii. 14, 15). God constituted the human mind with self-consciousness ; he works upon the mind as thus constituted ; and its op eration in those who are without a revelation is described as " doing by nature the things of the law." God gave also to man a primitive revela tion, perverted truths of which are found in all heathen systems of religion. The Christian Scrip tures are a development of the promise given to our first parents (Gen. iii. 15), who constituted the human race. This promise was doubtless trans mitted to their descendants. The Logos shone among them as a light becoming more and more obscure until the Incarnation, — "And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness compre hended it not" (ver. 5). The term "darkness" implies a moral revolu tion, and describes the human race from the time of the fall, to which there is evident allusion. By the fall the bond between humanity and the Logos was broken. The light that was in man was THE WORD. 45 changed into darkness. And how great was that darkness ! The nations sat in darkness and in the region and shadow of death. But God did not leave himself without witness among men (Acts xiv. 17). He "determined the times before ap pointed, and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek . the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us ; for in him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts xvii. 26-28). " That which may be known of God is manifest in them ; for God hath shewed it unto them " (Rom. i. 19). " The work of the law was written in their hearts." It is to this fact that the verb "shineth" (in the opinion of the writer) refers. The Logos shone in the hearts of men by preserv ing in them the ideals of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. The heathen made moral distinc tions, and formed to themselves ideals, which they did not copy. When the Apostles preached to them they did not invent new terms by which to desig nate the virtues; they found words ready for their use. Paul used terms long employed by the heathen when he spoke of things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report (Phil. iv. 8). 46 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. Dr. Godet explains the verb alvei (shineth) "by the historical appearance of Jesus Christ;" and the words, " The darkness comprehended it not" by the rejection of the gospel on the part of the majority of mankind estranged from God, and especially of the mass of the Israelitish na tion." 1 Dr. G. supports this view by strong reasons. Nevertheless, it is better, in the writer's opinion, to apply the verse to the revealing action of the Logos before his incarnation. " And the darkness comprehended it not." " And " (ical) seems here to have the sense of and yet, or, and nevertheless. In Greek ical is sometimes apparently adversative, when the anti thesis of the thought is clear in itself. It has the adversative sense in verses 10 and n. " He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and (and yet) the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and (and yet) his own received him not." The light shone in the darkness of the heathen world, which, in its sinfulness, sometimes exhibited the working of the good. " When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thank ful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing them- 1 Dr. Godet, in loo. THE WORD. 47 selves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things " (Rom. i. 21-23). Yet in their mythologies, usages, and philosophemes, there were many scintillations of the light of truth. Verses 6-13 describe the historic manifestation of the Logos generally. In the preceding section the sacred writer has set forth the great facts which issue in the conflict between light and darkness (ver. 5) ; he " now traces in outline the course of the conflict, which is apprehended in its essential character in the final manifestation of the Light. This manifestation was heralded by prophecy, of which John the Baptist was the last representative (ver. 6-8). It had been prepared also by continuous revelations of the Word, as light, at once through special communications (ver. 9), and by his immanent Presence (ver. 10). But when he came to his own in the fulness of time, he found, as the Incarnate Saviour, national unbe lief (ver. 11) relieved only by individual faith (ver. 12, 13). The conflict shadowed out before (ver. 5) still continued." x 1 The Bible Commentary, in loo. 48 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. John the Baptist seems to be introduced very abruptly; but it may be explained by the fact that the review of the revelation preparatory to the incarnation starts from the last stage of that revelation. John — a priest and a Nazarite — was the completed type of the prophet (Matt. xi. 9). He was the interpreter of the Old Dispensation, and the herald of the New; and it is the general opinion that the Apostle John was guided to Christ by him (John i. 35 et seq.). The prepara tion of prophecy, represented by the Baptist, was a part of the education of the world. " The testi mony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy " (Rev. xix. 10). " They testified beforehand the suffer ings of Christ and the glory that should follow " (1 Pet. i. 11); and "when the fulness of time had come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons " (Gal. iv. 4, 5). Christ is born, the angels sing, Born a Saviour and a King, Born of David's royal race, Born to rule his Church with grace. Christ is born as prophets told — Told to men in days of old — THE WORD. 49 Men who waited for the light, Looked, but died without the sight. Christ is born — a brother, friend, Highest, best of human kind — Born to raise our fallen race Higher than its pristine place. Christ is born o'er earth to reign, Eden's bloom to bring again : War and pestilence shall cease, Nations dwell in love and peace. Hail, thou Saviour, source of Grace, Man and God, the Prince of Peace, Light of Heaven and Joy of Earth, Praises for thy wondrous birth. By the Author. 50 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. CHAPTER II. THE GOD-MAN (6 0edv6pwTro<;.) " \ ND the Word (6 ^6709) was made flesh and ¦*¦ dwelt among us " (John i. 14). "Who was manifest in the flesh" (1 Tim. iii. 16). The phrase " was made flesh " means that the Word became man. He assumed human nature. The expression " was made flesh," is probably directed against the Doketai of the Apostle's time, who maintained that the assumption of human nature by the Word was not real, but only apparent. The term " flesh " has, in Scripture, a variety of meanings: (1) one of the constituent parts of the body (Luke xxiv. 39; 1 Cor. xv. 39); (2) the animal or external nature, as distinguished from the spiritual, or inner man (2 Cor. vii. 1 ; Col. ii. 5) > (3) that which is merely external or appar ent, in opposition to what is spiritual and real (John vi. 61 ; Heb. ix. 10, 13) ; (4) human nature THE GOD-MAN. 5 I in general, as fallen and corrupt (John iii. 6; Rom. viii. 3, 4); (5) it is used, by way of metonymy, for human nature (Matt. xix. 5, 6; Eph. v. 31). In this last sense it is employed in reference to the incarnation of the Word (John i. 14). The Word assumed human nature with its sinless in firmities. " In all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren" (Heb. ii. 17). Yet he was without sin (Heb. iv. 15). He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners (Heb. vii. 26). The incarnation is the fundamental miracle of Christianity. It removes the chasm between the Creator and creature. Between the Almighty and Eternal God and man, who is dust and ashes, the distance is infinite. God is infinite ; man is finite. There is an antithesis of being which can be re moved only in the sphere of being. This the Word effected when he became flesh, and dwelt among us. By the incarnation God and man were united.1 Those who deny the reality of miracles deny, of course, the reality of the incarnation. But any one who carefully considers the life of Christ, even 1 Martensen's Christian Dogmatics, pp. 16, 18. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 52 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. though the Scriptures were silent concerning his miraculous conception, would conclude that his origin was different from that of other men. That he was true man, his history shows; but the same history attributes to him many miraculous acts which clearly prove that there was something in him superhuman. He was not merely a man. He was not an angel. He was God-man. If he was not he was guilty of the most absurd and blasphemous claims. To deny his divinity leads to the logical inference that he was an impostor. It matters not how much some may eulogize his character as a good and wise Teacher and Re former, while, at the same time, they deny his divinity; they are either inconsistent or insincere. A mere man who calls himself the son of God, claims equality with God, and existence with him before the world was, cannot be either good or wise. He is unfit to be a teacher of mankind. He is either insane or an impostor. There are no historico-critical reasons for ex punging from history the first two chapters of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which clearly teach His miraculous conception. The genuineness and credibility of these two Gospels apply equally to the parts specified. These parts exhibit, in all THE GOD-MAN. 53 probability, family records representing, in one case, the descent of Joseph, and in the other, that of Mary. It is not a difficult matter to reconcile them, at least in their main points. With the ex ception of the construction of the Gospel history by the Tiibingen School, scarcely a doubt exists as to its genuineness and authenticity. The Evan gelists intended to write a history of the beginning of our Lord's life, which, after an examination expressly devoted to it, must have been known to them. Objections, it is true, have been made to the history of our Lord's birth. These objections have been drawn in the first place, from statements in the Gospels apparently opposed to the accounts given in the first chapter of Matthew, and in the first of Luke. He is mentioned as the son of Joseph (John vi. 42) ; but it is very unreasonable to attach greater value to the superficial utterance of public opinion, and that on a point on which it was entirely uninformed, than to the Gospel narra tive. Philip calls Jesus the son of Joseph (John i. 45) ; but he could not speak of him without special revelation, in any other way, after a first meeting with him. An objection has been drawn from the account 54 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. of the descent of the Holy Spirit at his baptism. But it is not easy to understand how a new and enlarged communication of the Holy Spirit on that occasion should contradict, or exclude his miraculous conception, especially as both these facts are communicated by the same Evangelists, who failed to see their unreconcilableness. The genealogies given by Matthew and Luke have been made a ground of objection. But if Matthew has reference to the descent of Joseph, and Luke to that of Mary, the genealogies prove nothing against, but are rather in favor of the mir acle in question. Matthew confirms the Davidic descent of the Lord, by showing the genealogy of his legal father, but asserts at the same time, that Joseph was not his natural father. Luke speaks of Jesus as " being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph," but in reality, through Mary, a descendant of her father Heli, etc. (Luke iii. 23). The Johannean doctrine of the Logos, far from being in conflict with the dogma of the miraculous conception, calls forth and legitimates it. So ex alted a Person could not have begun life in the ordinary way among men ; and hence that doc trine indirectly confirms the twofold synoptical account. THE GOD-MAN. 55 No difficulty can be raised on the ground of the silence of Jesus and his Apostles in regard to the miracle of his birth. Our Saviour himself, when twelve years of age, manifested the consciousness, in the presence of his mother and her husband, that Joseph was not his father (Luke ii. 49). In the presence of his enemies there was a manifest propriety for reticence on the subject (Matt. vii. 6). The Apostles always recognized his supra- natural character, which naturally, and by itself, opened up the way for the recognition of the miraculous beginning of his life. Paul certainly did not regard the second Adam, the man from heaven, as a merely natural descendant of the first. The spiritual in this instance is not produced out of the natural, but enters as a new element into the sphere of the natural. Galatians iv. 4 says that " God sent forth his Son, made of a woman." Moreover, the beginning of our Saviour's life be longs to his earlier personal history, not to that which constituted the proper subject matter of the Apostles' teaching, which extended from the bap tism of John to his ascension, and which directed their attention especially to his resurrection (Acts i. 22). The miraculous origin of our Lord was assumed in their preaching. 56 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. Philosophical objections to this doctrine have no weight against the testimony of Scripture and the faith of the Holy Catholic Church. We admit the possibility of miracles, and we believe that they have been performed. Some, however, ad mit the possibility of miracles in the abstract, and yet assert that there is no reason for such a mir acle as that under consideration, and that there is no end to be accomplished by it. But suppose that Jesus Christ was sent by the Father into the world to become the Head of a new humanity, was there no reason for such a miracle? was there no end to be accomplished by it? If it be said that God could have kept his incarnate Son from the hereditary defilement of our race without a miraculous birth, that is only substi tuting one miracle for another, and nothing is gained.1 We " believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father be fore all worlds [God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance [essence] with the Father; by whom all things were made ; who, for us men and our salva tion, came down from heaven, and was incarnate 1 See Van Oosterzee's Dogmatics, vol. ii. 543-549. THE GOD-MAN. 57 by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man." : " Den aller Weltkreis nie beschloss, Der lieget in Marien's Schooss ; In unser armes Fleisch und Blut, Verkleidet sich das hochste Gut." 2 [He whom the world could not contain, Now Mary's virgin arms sustain ; With our poor, feeble flesh and blood Invests himself the highest Good.] Jesus Christ is true God, and true man, — one Person with two natures. The subject of Christology has given rise to many controversies in the Christian Church. This is not strange, since the mode of contemplating the work of Christ is necessarily connected with the views taken of his Person and of Anthropology; and hence differences of opinion on these subjects will modify the view of the work of Christ. A brief historical outline of the controversies concerning the Person of Christ will contribute to a correct understanding of the subject. 1 " Creeds of Cristendom," by Dr. Schaff, vol. ii. pp. 58, 59 New York: Harper & Brothers. 1877. 2 Luther. 58 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. I. Controversies concerning the Logos. i. Gnosticism, which assumed various phases, — " Dualistic Parseeism, mangled Platonism, Ju daism misunderstood, and Christianity grossly perverted." 1 It is not necessary to enter into a detailed dis cussion of these phases of Gnosticism. Suffice it to say that it held the dualistic theory of the universe, which involved the eternity of evil as well as of good ; that man was sinful by creation, because all creation is the work of the Demiurge. It divided mankind into three classes, — oi irvevfj.aTiicol, ol ¦^rvxiicoi, ol vKikol, — and asserted that only the first class are capable of being redeemed, and that the other two classes, who constitute the great mass of mankind, are hopelessly given over to evil lusts and Satanic powers. Gnosticism denied the doctrine of creation from nothing, and held that it was only a development out of antecedents. As a consequence it could not logically hold the doctrine of a free finite will. There was no truly and strictly moral agent. Man, like nature, is an 1 " History of the Christian Church,'' by W. M. Blackburn, D.D. Cincinnati: Hitchcock and Walden. 1879. See Ap pendix C. THE GOD-MAN. 59 evolution from the essence of the Supreme Deity, — not directly, indeed, but really, through a de scending and a degenerating series of powers and attributes. It denied the doctrine of expiatory atonement, and the principle of vicarious substitu tion in reference to justice. According to the Christology of Gnosticism, the Logos was an aeon, — an emanation of the Highest Being. In all the various forms of Gnosticism, Doketism formed a common point of resemblance. " The oldest ethnicizing dualism (which subse quently comes to unity hellenically in Valentinus, and was purified Christianly by Marcion) views Christ as a being whose nature is light, and who cannot come into positive intercourse with the darkness, with matter, or their domain, to which also humanity belongs, without being defiled." : 2. Doketism was a consequence of the disrup tion of the Divine and the human.2 It denied the human side of Christ's life. His human body 1 Dr. Dorner's " Doctrine of the Person of Christ," vol. i. p. 229. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1884. Dr. Shedd's "His tory of Christian Doctrine," vol. ii. pp. 28, 205, 229. Neander's " Church History," vol. i., pp. 366-378 ; also his " History of Doc trines." Dr. Blackburn's " History of the Christian Church," p. 114. 2 Appendix D. 60 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. was a mere optical deception. This view nulli fies the reality of Christ's historical appearance, and places something merely ideal in the place of the historical, and is essentially the same view which was brought forward about fifty years ago by Strauss. The Apostle John lays great stress upon Christ's real and proper humanity, as well as upon his real and proper divinity. He says: " Hereby know ye the spirit of God : Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God : and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God " (i John iv. 2, 3). The same doctrine is expressed by an early Father of the Church in the words, " Whoever teaches that Christ is only an apparent man is only an apparent Christian." 3. Ebionitism. This regarded Christianity as a continuation of Judaism, and did not distinguish Christ specifically from the earlier messengers of God, but made him a sort of potentiated Moses, who at his baptism was equipped for his Messianic work by the continuation of special divine powers. Doketism denied the human in Christ, Ebionit ism the divine: the former proceeded from a Gnostic, the latter from a Jewish standpoint. THE GOD-MAN. 6 1 There were combinations of the Ebionitish and Gnostic views in Cerinthus and Basilides. The Ebionitish element showed itself in excluding the sufferings of redemption ; the Gnostic, in its spec ulations on the Logos. Hence, two Messiahs were distinguished, — an inferior, and a superior Mes siah, — the one taken from the Ebionitish, or Jew ish standpoint, the other, from the Gnostic.1 4. Monarchianism. The Monarchians held that Christ, before his appearance in the flesh, was not a self-subsistent existence, that he had not an indwelling divinity of his own, but only that of the Father. They are divided into two classes : — (a) The Dynamists, who held that the Logos in Jesus was a force, or power, as reason is in us. This power was not a person, — not the personal and eternal Son of God. Their text was : " Christ the power of God." He was only a divinely en dowed man. (b) The Modalists, who asserted that God was one Person, yet he had manifested himself in a trinity of successive modes. In one mode or phase, or stage of evolution, he was the Father; 1 Neander's " History of Christian Dogmas," sub Gnosticism, Doketism, and Ebionitism. 62 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. in another, the Son; in a third, the Holy Spirit. This view is inconsistent with the plain statements of Scripture, which speaks of God sending his Son, and of Christ sending the Comforter. Accord ing to Modalism, these statements must mean that God, in his aspect as Son, sent himself; and that, in the same aspect, and also in the aspect of Com forter or Holy Spirit, he sent himself. Praxeas was charged with saying that with Jesus Pater natus, Pater passus, — the Father was born, the Father suffered. Hence the name " Patripas- sians " given to the sect.1 II. Controversies concerning Christ (The God-Man). I. Arianism, of which there are two divis ions, — Arians and semi-Arians. The Arians de nied the existence of a truly and properly divine nature in the Person of Jesus Christ.2 Semi- Arians held that the Logos was of a nature simi lar (6p,oioovo-io<;) to that of God, but not identical with it. They denied the absolute divinity of the God-man. But Arians taught that Christ was lack- 1 Ibid., sub Monarchianism ; Dr. Blackburn's " History of the Christian Church," pp. 59, 60, 114. 2 Appendix E. THE GOD-MAN. 6^ ing in a divine nature in every sense of the term. Though the Son of God, at the birth of Jesus Christ, was united with human nature, yet that son of God was a mere creature (/cTio-p.a). He ex isted before his birth, but not from eternity. The Apostle Paul says (Col. i. 15) that he "is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature (7rp&>T0T0/a>? irao-iy; Kriaews:). The second predicate defines the relation of the Son of God to the created world. npayroTOKO*; distin guishes him from the creation, and Trda^ denotes every kind of creature, angels, and men. Christ existed before them all. The correct rendering of the clause is : " the first-born before every creat ure," the genitive depending on irpaTo*;, as 7rpcoT09 p.ov in John i. 15. This is evident from the first clause of the following verse (Col. i. 16), which reads : " For by him," or rather in him, " were all things created that are in heaven, and that are on earth." He must, therefore, have existed before all things. Hence the view of the Arians that he is the first creature is incorrect, " for by him were all things 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, and by him all things consist." 64 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. At the Nicene Council, held at Nicsea, A. D. 325, a discussion was raised on the question whether Christ is of like or similar substance (6/jLoioova-to?) with the Father, or of the same substance, co- essential or coequal (bfioovo-vos) with the Father. The Council declared his consubstantiality with the Father. Its decision, as enlarged A. D. 381, is in the following words : — " We [I] believe ... in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, Begotten of the Father before all worlds ; [God of God], Light of Light, Very God of very God, Begotten not made ; Being of one substance with the Father ; By whom all things were made ; who, for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man." 1 2. Apollinarianism. Apollinaris, bishop of Lao- dicea, held that, in Jesus Christ, the Logos took the place of the human spirit. In his time the threefold division of human nature into body (aSifxa), soul (ijrvxv), and spirit (irvevfia), had be come current, and Apollinaris supposed that it would be easier to conceive of, and explain Christ's Person, if the Logos were regarded as taking the place of the higher rational principle in 1 Dr Schaff's "Creeds of Christendom," vol. i. pp. 27, 28. THE GOD-MAN. 65 the ordinary threefold nature of man, and thereby becoming an integral portion of humanity. But according to this view, the Divine did not take to itself a complete and entire human nature.1 In A. D. 362 an Alexandrine Council con demned his doctrine, and affirmed that Christ had a rational soul. 3. Nestorianism? Nestorius, first a Syrian monk then a presbyter at Antioch, and, in A. D. 428, Patriarch of Constantinople, taught that each nature in Christ is personal. From this it would follow that Christ has a twofold personality as well as a twofold nature. The defect in his Christology does not relate to the distinction of the two na tures, but to the union of the two in one Person. He concedes a true and proper deity, and a true and proper humanity; but they are not, according to his view, united in a single and self-conscious personality. Instead of blending the two natures into only one self, the Nestorian scheme places two selves side by side, and allows only a moral and sympathetic union between them.3 4. Eutychianism. This error derives its name 1 Dr. Shedd's " History of Christian Doctrine," vol. i. p. 394. 2 Appendix F. 8 Dr. Shedd's " History of Christian Doctrine," vol. i. p. 396. 5 66 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. from Eutyches, an abbot of Constantinople, who taught that Christ had only one nature, and one person ; that in the incarnation the human nature was transmuted into the divine ; and that his suf ferings were purely and solely the sufferings of Deity. This error was the opposite of Nesto- rianism, and gave rise to what are called the Mon- ophysite and Monotheletic controversies. These errors — Nestorianism and Eutychianism — were condemned by the Council of Chalcedon, which was held in A. D. 451. Nestorius and Euty ches agreed with the Nicene Creed as opposed to Arianism, but put the godhead of Christ in a false relation to his humanity. The following are the leading ideas of the Chal- cedonian Christology as embodied in the Creed of that name : — (a) " A true incarnation of the Logos, or the second person in the Godhead.1 This incarnation is neither a conversion or transmutation of God into man nor a conversion of man into God, and a consequent absorp tion of the one, or a confusion of the two ; - nor, on the other hand, a mere indwelling s of the one in the other, 1 'Evav8pi0Trri(ris deov, £vo-&piiwo~is tov h6yov, incamatio. 2 Kpao-is, inseparabiliter. 68 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. main divine, and the human ever human, and yet the two have continually one common life, and interpene trate each other, like the persons of the Trinity. (e) " The Unity of the Person} The unity of the di vine and human nature in Christ is a permanent state resulting from the incarnation, and is a real, supernatural, personal, and inseparable union, in distinction from an essential absorption or confusion, or from a mere moral union, or from a mystical union such as holds between the believer and Christ. The two natures constitute but one personal life, and yet remain distinct. The same who is true God is also true man. (/) " The whole work of Christ is to be attributed to his person, and not to the one or the other exclusively. The person is the acting subject, the nature the organ or medium. It is the one divine-human person of Christ that wrought miracles by virtue of his divine nature, and that suffered through the sensorium of his human nature. The superhuman effect and infinite merit of the Re deemer's work must be ascribed to his person because of his divinity ; while it is his humanity alone, that made him capable of and liable to toil, temptation, suf fering, and death, and renders him an example for our imitation. (g) " The Anhypostasia, Impersonality, or, to speak more accurately, the Enhypostasia? of the human nature 1 ivwtris KaB' bKbaraaiv, eVwiris inroaTaTiicii, unio hypostat\ca, or unio personalis. 2 ' Avvir6aTaTos is that which has no personality in itself; tvv THE GOD-MAN. 69 of Christ ; for anhypostasia is a purely negative term, and presupposes a fictitious abstraction, since the human nature of Christ did not exist at all before the act of the incar nation, and could therefore be neither personal nor im personal. The meaning of this doctrine is that Christ's human nature had no independent personality of its own besides the divine, and that the divine nature is the root of his personality." 1 The sixth CEcumenical Council (the third of Constantinople, A. D. 680) re-enacted and enlarged the Creed of Chalcedon, adding that "Jesus Christ had two distinct and inseparable wills, as well as two natures, — a human will and a divine will working in harmony, the human in subordination to the divine; the will being regarded as an at tribute of nature rather than [of] person." 2 The so-called Athanasian Creed " contains (ver. 29-44) a succinct statement of the orthodox doc trine concerning the person of Christ, as settled by the general Councils of Ephesus, 431, a'nd Chal cedon, 451, and in this respect it is a valuable sup- iriiiTTOTos, that which subsists in another personality, or partakes of another hypostasis. 1 Dr. Schaff's " Creeds of Christendom," vol. i. pp. 30, 31, 32. 2 Neander's " Church History," vol. ii. pp. 524-550. " History of Dogmas," pp. 316-339. Dr. Blackburn's "Church History," pp. 1 14-128. Dr. Shedd's " History of Doctrines," vol. i. pp 397- 408. 70 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. plement to the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. It asserts that Christ had a rational soul (yovs, irvev- p,a), in opposition to the Apollinarian heresy, which limited the extent of his humanity to a mere body with an animal soul, inhabited by the divine Logos. It also teaches the proper relation between the divine and human nature of Christ, and excludes the Nestorian and Eutychian or Monophysite heresies, in essential agreement with the Chalcedonian symbol." 1 Though the Chalcedonian Creed does not ex haust " the great mystery of godliness, ' God manifest in the flesh,' yet it indicates the essential elements of Christological truth, and the boundary lines of Christological error. It defines the course for the sound development of this central article of the Christian faith so as to avoid both the Scylla of Nestorian dualism and the Charybdis of Eutych ian monophysitism, and to save the full idea of the one divine and human personality of our Lord and Saviour."2 Its doctrine concerning the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ is the orthodox faith of the Church Catholic. The principal Christological errors which have 1 Dr. Schaff's " Creeds of Christendom," vol. i. p. 39. 2 Ibid., vol. i. p. 34. THE GOD-MAN. 71 been specified are analogous to some systems of philosophy which have more or less prevailed in the world : — 1. Ebionitism is analogous to Realism. 2. Gnosticism, in some of its features, is anal ogous to idealism. 3. Nestorianism, to dualism. 4. Eutychianism, to absolutism. " A false philosophy and a false Christology are con centric circles. Both turn upon the same one-sided method of thinking ; which, whether applied to the reason, the world, or Christ, leads to results intrinsically the same. The necessary conditions, which must be met by a true solution of the philosophical problem, are thus identical, scientifically considered, with those which must be met by the solution of the Christological problem." J In Jesus Christ all contradictions are reconciled.2 It has been remarked that the Chalcedonian Creed does not exhaust the great mystery of god liness, but only indicates the essential elements of Christological truth. It did not stay the progress 1 The Rev. Dr. E. V. Gerhart's " Introduction to Study of Phi losophy," pp. 101-137. Philadelphia' Reformed Church Publica tion Board. z " Pense'es de Pascal," p. 136. A Paris : chez Lefevre et Compagme. 1847. 72 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. of controversy. Its immediate effect was to pro duce a schism in the Church, whereby the Mono- physite party became constituted into a sect. The great debate went on for upwards of three hun dred years, passing successively through three different stages, distinguished respectively as the Monophysite, the Monothelite, and the Adoption controversies.1 Many questions were left unsettled, which fur nished materials for discussion, — such as: " Are unity of the person and a duality of natures mutu ally compatible? What belongs to the category of the natures, and what to the category of the person ; and in particular, to which of the two categories is the will to be reckoned? Is person ality essential to the completeness of each nature, in particular to the completeness of the human nature? "2 No attempt will be made in this brief treatise to answer these questions. " After several fruit less attempts had been made to establish the Mon othelite doctrine, the Sixth CEcumenical Council of Constantinople (a. D. 680), with the co-operation 1 "The Humiliation of Christ," by Alexander B. Bruce, D.D., p. 86. Edinburgh. T. and T. Clark. 1S76. 2 Ibid., pp. 86, 87. THE GOD-MAN. 73 of the Bishop of Rome, adopted the doctrine of two wills, and two energies, as the ortho dox doctrine, but decided that the human will must always be conceived as subordinate to the divine." J After the Monothelite controversy had been brought to a close in the East, the orthodox doc trine was again endangered by the Adoption inter pretation of the Sonship of Christ, advanced by several Spanish bishops, especially Elipandus of Toledo, and Felix of Urgella.2 The term Adoptio was employed " to mark the distinction of proper and improper in reference to the Son. They made use of the illustration that as a son cannot have two fathers, but may have one by birth and another by adoption, so in Christ a distinction must be made between his proper sonship, and his sonship by adoption. Still they regarded as the important point the different re lation in which Christ is called the Son of God according to his divine or his human nature. The former relation marked something founded in the nature of God; the second, something that was 1 Hagenbach's " History of Doctrines," vol. i. p. 283. New York : Sheldon & Company. 1868. 2 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 35. 74 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. founded not in his nature, but in a free act of the divine will, by which God assumed human nature into connection with himself. Accordingly, Felix distinguished between how far Christ was the Son of God and God according to nature (natura, genere), and how far he was so by virtue of grace, by an act of the divine Will {gratia, voluntate), by the Divine choice and good pleasure (clectione, pla- cito) ; and the name Son of God was given to him only in consequence of his connection with God (nuncupative) ; and hence the expressions for this distinction, secundum naturam, and secundum adoptionem." J Felix maintained that the Logos united with a human nature that was unsanctified ; that Christ had a corrupted nature, though he never com mitted actual transgression. He thought this to be necessary in order that Christ might be tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. But this implies that corruption of nature is not sin. He was opposed by Alcuin. The the ory was revived in Germany by Menken, and in Great Britain by Irving. Schleiermacher held that " Christ had an earthly father, but that by 1 " Neander's History of Christian Dogmas,' vol. ii. p. 444. London : Henry G. Bohn. 1858. THE GOD-MAN. 75 a supernatural operation on the embryo it was cleansed from original sin." 1 This error was condemned by a Council con voked, by Charlemagne, at Regensburg, in A. D. 792 ; and again by a second synod, called by the same Emperor, at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, in A. D. 794- Another error, termed Nihilianism, was intro duced by Peter Lombard, who taught that the Son of God did not become anything by the assumption of human nature, because no change can take place in the Divine nature. The phrase that he used was " Deus non /actus est aliquid." Peter Lombard probably did not intend by the phrase non aliquid an absolute denial of existence, but only the denial of existence in a certain individual form. His doctrine was rejected by the Synod of Tours, A. D. 1163.2 Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas at tempted to develop the Christological doctrines of the Church in a dialectic method.3 Thomas Aquinas regarded the union of the two 1 Dr. Shedd's "Dogmatic Theology," vol. ii. p. 302. New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. 1889. 2 Hagenbach's History of Doctrines, vol. ii. pp. 35, 38. New York : Sheldon and Company. 1868. 8 Appendix G. 76 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. natures " as something created ; that is, it falls under the category of manifestations of grace to created beings, and does not denote a peculiar mode of the being of God. The human nature was, in his view, impersonal (non per se sub sis- tens) ; it was personal, not in itself, but in the Logos, — which was a distinction conferred on it." " Touching the effects of the incarnation on the humanity of Christ, Thomas Aquinas regarded the grace that was in Christ, not as gradually increasing, but as communicated in such perfection at the very moment of incarnation that, viewed from within, an increase of its vigor was inconceivable. From the very commence ment, he was not merely ' viator,' but also ' compre- hensor,' — and that, both in reference to his knowledge, and in reference to his will. He possessed, however, a double knowledge, a double wisdom. As the Son, he naturally had the absolute, divine wisdom ; as a man, he had the knowledge of the blessed, that is, a knowl edge of all things in the Word. But his human un derstanding was again two-fold, — firstly, in infused knowledge ; and in this respect there was no knowledge in him potentially which was not also actual ; secondly, he possessed an experimental, or acquired knowledge (scientia experimental, vel acquisita) . " Relatively to the will, more particularly, he taught that there was a divine will in Christ, which was the THE GOD-MAN. "]"] active cause of everything he did (principium primum movens). Yet there was also in him a human will, which was not a mere dead instrument. The human na ture in serving as the instrument of the Deity, was moved, not by a constraining necessity, but by its own will. It is not repugnant to the human will to be inwardly moved by God ; and notwithstanding divine impulses, it still continues to be a human will, for God's will works volitions. "Thomas Aquinas also adopted the principle laid down by the Lombard, that Christ was Mediator, not as God, but as man. As the Mediator, it was his mission to unite the extremes. Simply as God, he could not do this ; for, as God, there was no difference between him and the Father and the Spirit ; but as a man, he occupied a middle position, being different from God as touching his nature, and different from men in worth, grace, and glory. In this case again, therefore, the humanity, as endowed with the grace of God, is the Mediator, and not the God-manhood." 1 A few years after the Reformation, in the six teenth century, the subject of Christology passed into a new phase. A dispute, concerning the per son of Christ, arose, which continued, without intermission, for a century, and produced, in its course, a separation of the German Protestants 1 Dorner's " Doctrine of the Person of Christ," division ii. vol. i. pp. 329-339. 78 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. into two rival communions, designated the Lu theran and Reformed. The controversy had its origin in a difference of opinion between Luther and Zuingli as to the nature of Christ's presence in the sacrament of the Supper. Zuingli maintained that Christ is present spiritually only, and only to them who believe, that the bread and wine are simply em blems of his broken body and shed blood, — aids to faith, and stimulants to a grateful remembrance. Luther asserted, with great vehemence and posi- tiveness, that the Saviour is present in the Supper, in, with, and under the bread, and is eaten both by believers and by unbelievers, — by the former to their benefit, by the latter to their hurt. From this view arose the question of the ubi quity of Christ's body. Is it ubiquitous? If it is, how is this attribute compatible with the nature of body? with the ascension of our Lord to heaven? with his sitting at the right hand of God? with the promise of his second coming? and how did his body come by the attribute of ubiquity? Did he acquire it after his exaltation as the reward of his voluntary humiliation? Or did he possess it before his ascension, even from the moment of conception as the necessary result of the union of THE GOD-MAN. 79 the human and the divine attributes in one person, involving the communication to the inferior nature not only of ubiquity, but of all the attributes of the superior nature? If this last position be assumed, then the ques tion arises : How can such a humanity, invested with all that belongs to the divine nature, be re conciled with the facts of Christ's earthly history, — with his birth and growth in wisdom, with his localization in different places at different times, with his temptation and sufferings? The controversy was at first mainly confined to the doctrine of the Supper, and the single attri bute of ubiquity. It widened, in another stage between Brentz and the Formula of Concord, into a discussion of the person of Christ, and the con sequences of the union of the two natures in that person, with a view to a firm Christological basis for the doctrine of the Supper. It reached a third stage, that of the Giessen-Tiibingen controversy, which was internal to the Lutheran Church. The aim of the controversy during this stage was to adjust Lutheran Christological theories to histori cal facts. The Lutheran Christology resolved itself into two distinct types, denominated from the names 8o • CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. of their first expositors the Brentian and the Chemnitzian. The fundamental position of Brentz in reference to the person of Christ is this : Although the natures or substances are altogether diverse, and have each their own peculiar properties, neverthe less these same substances are conjoined in such a union that they form one inseparable hypostasis or person, and their respective properties are mu tually communicated so familiarly, that whatever is a property of either nature is appropriated by the other to itself. The two natures are not merely united in one person, the Ego tying together two altogether dissimilar substances still continuing dissimilar; they are united into one person, their union constituting the person, and involving ipso facto a communication of their respective prop erties. Brentz was careful to explain that in the person of Christ neither nature is changed into the other, but both remain inviolate and in possession of their essential properties. But then, how is it possible for Christ's human body to be present in different localities at the same time? In reply to this question, Brentz took the position that to be in loco — in a place — is not an essential attri- THE GOD-MAN. 8 1 bute of, but only an accident of body. He con ceived of the ubiquity of Christ as illocal, and maintained the co-existence simultaneously in Christ of two modes of being, — a local existence here or there in space, and an illocal, omnipresent being in the Logos, to which the humanity is united. Chemnitz held that the personal union of the two natures in Christ involved a real communi cation of the properties of the divine nature to the human, limited only by the principle that each nature must preserve its essential properties, repu diating the Reformed conception of the union as a sustentation of the human by the divine, or as a mere gluing together of two separate and en tirely heterogeneous natures. While he asserted the Lutheran position concerning the communica tion of attributes, he was careful to guard against anything like exaequation of the natures. Chemnitz's position in regard to Christ's bodily presence in the Supper, and in the Church gen erally, was that he is able to be present, when, where, and how he pleases, even in an invisible form. He did not teach that Christ possessed a necessary omnipresence, but a hypothetical or optional multipresence. He adopted the canon 82 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. that, after the union of the two natures, the Logos is not outside the flesh, nor the flesh outside the Logos; from which it follows that the humanity is always intimately and inseparably present to the Logos ; and from this follows in turn the possibility of the humanity being present at will to any part of Creation. Such were the two forms which the Lutheran Christology assumed in the hands of Brentz and Chemnitz. The Formula of Concord was the result of an attempt to reconcile them.1 The principle on which the Lutheran Christol ogy is based is that the union of the two natures in one person involves communication of attri butes.2 The communication is all on one side; while there seems to be no reason a priori why it should not be reciprocal. The axiom finitum non capax infiniti is set aside ; while the correlative proposition, infinitum non capax finiti, is as sumed to be axiomatically certain. The princi ple threatens the extinction of Christ's human nature, and leaves no room for such exinanition in the earthly life of Christ as shall satisfy the 1 Libri Symbolici Ecclesise Lutheranae, pp. 366-376. Gottin- gaen. 1830. 2 Appendix H. THE GOD-MAN. 83 requirements of historical truth and the aim of the incarnation.1 The Reformed Christology differs in some broad features from the Lutheran. The Lutheran em phasizes the majesty of Christ's humanity, the Re formed its reality. The Lutheran Christology was speculative in tendency, asserting many things about Christ which are not verifiable, or histori cally attested truths, but simply a priori deduc tions from a conceived idea of Christ's person, as constituted by the union of the divine and human natures. The Reformed Christology, on the con trary, adhered rigidly to the facts of the gospel history, and refused to draw any speculative infer ences from the doctrine of the Incarnation. It carried the assertion of the distinctness of natures as far as was compatible with the recognition of the unity of the person. The union of the natures is not a merely nominal and formal thing; there is a communion of the natures, but not a communi cation of attributes. The human nature possesses a communication of charisms fitting it to be the companion and organ of Deity. The Reformed Christology, unlike the Lutheran, applied the cate- 1 Professor Bruce's " Humiliation of Christ," lect. iii. pp. 107- 148. Edinburgh : T. & T. Clark. 1876. 84 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. gory of exinanition to the divine nature of Christ. It was the Son of God who emptied himself, and he did this in becoming man. The Incarnation itself in the actual form in which it took place was a kenosis for him who was in the form of God before he took the form of a servant.1 The classical passage (locus classicus) for the kenosis is Philippians ii. 5-9 : " Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus : who being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men ; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, — yea, the death of the cross" (R. V.). In these verses the Apostle predicates two acts of Jesus Christ, — (1) he emptied himself, in vir tue of which he became man; (2) He humbled himself, which humiliation culminated in death on the cross. The kenosis (emptying himself) signifies a de termination not to cling to equality of estate with God. This seems to be the meaning of the words ovk apvayfibv rjyrjo-aTO to elvai Xcra @ea>. He did 1 Professor Bruce's " Humiliation of Christ," lect. iii. pp. 148- 172. Edinburgh : T. & T. Clark. 1876. THE GOD-MAN. 85 not practise dpTrayp,6v with reference to equality with God; but, on the contrary, emptied himself. The clause " to be on an equality " is exegetical of the clause " being in the form of God." Hence the passage cannot be regarded, as it is by some interpreters, as having exclusive reference to the earthly history of Christ. These interpreters re gard the form of God as something possessed in his state of humiliation, and equality with God as a thing to be attained in his state of exaltation. But if the phrase to be on an equality with God is equivalent to the phrase being in the form of God, such an interpretation is inadmissible. No mean ing can be assigned to one phrase which would be inconsistent with the other. This precludes us from understanding by the phrase the form of God the divine essence or nature. Mopcfii] (form) does not mean the same thing as ovala (essence) or (f>vai<; (nature). ^ Ovala denotes the naked es sence ; vai<;, the ovala clothed with its essential properties ; and p-op^ri adds to the essential and natural properties of the essence accidents which follow the true nature of a thing, and by which, as features and colors, ovaia and (pvan are shaped and depicted. Mopcprf thus presupposes ovala and uais, he might part with the p.opcf>ij. Such a part ing with it Phil. ii. 5-9 seems clearly to teach. The Apostle having represented the kenosis negatively with reference to the pre-existent state of the Logos, represents it also positively with reference to the historical existence of Christ. He not only emptied himself, but he also took the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. The Logos was made man, but he took the form of a servant. The human nature was the condition under which it was possible to bear the form of a servant, just as the divine nature was the condition under which it was possible to bear the name of God. The clause took the form of a servant sets forth the end of the incarnation ; and the clause was made in the likeness of men, the Incarnation itself. The second act which the Apostle predicates of Christ is his humiliation (rairelvasais). " He humbled himself, and became obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross." Christ, having become man that he might be a servant, carried THE GOD-MAN. 87 service and obedience to their extreme limit.1 He said : " I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me " (John vi. 38). "Behold me, then: me for him, life for life I offer ; on me let thine anger fall ; Account me man ; I for his sake will leave Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee Freely put off, and for him lastly die Well pleased ; on me let death wrack all his rage : Under his gloomy power I shall not long Lie vanquished." 2 The Christology of the kenosis had a close con nection with the union movement under Frederic William II., of Prussia. This was natural, as the union was between the Lutheran and Reformed communities. Dr. Bruce mentions four distinct types, which he designates (1) The absolute dualis tic type ; (2) The absolute metamorphic ; (3) The ab solute semi-metamorphic ; (4) The real, but relative? Of the first he takes Thomasius as the representa tive ; of the second, Gess ; of the third, Ebrard ; and of the fourth, Martensen.4 1 Professor Bruce's " Humiliation of Christ," lect. iii. pp. 21-28. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1876. 2 Milton's Paradise Lost, book iii. 3 The Humiliation of Christ, lect. iv. 4 Appendix I. 88 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. Whatever theories theologians may form con cerning the kenosis, one thing seems evident, — it did not mean self-extinction, or the metamor phosis of a divine being into a mere man. The Logos could not divest himself of his essential attributes ; in other words, he could not undeify himself, — such an act does not come within the sphere of omnipotence. The union of the two natures in Christ is a mys tery which human reason cannot solve. During his historical life on earth he exhibited the limi tations and sinless infirmities of humanity, while at the same time he manifested the attributes of God. He was the Son of God, begotten before all worlds, and the Son of Mary, born in time. " In him all his Father shone, Substantially expressed; "x and in him humanity appeared in its richest and highest bloom. It is probable that differences of opinion con cerning the kenosis and the constitution of Christ's person will always exist, among even evangelical theologians. In a work recently pub lished the author says : — 1 Milton's Paradise Lost, book iii. THE GOD-MAN. 89 " The kenostic theory holds that the Divine Mind, in taking 'the form of a servant,' in submitting to the con ditions and limitations of the flesh, ipso facto, and neces sarily, emptied itself, and presented only a finite expression of Deity, and thus became in the true sense of the word man. This partial occultation explains, we think, Christ's human traits, and renders the presence of the human soul superfluous." 1 A writer in the " Bibliotheca Sacra " says : — " It [the physiological view] shows how the quasi personality of the Logos became the full personality of Christ, — it was by taking on the maternal complement of soul. . . . The Logos was the basis of the personality of Christ ; yet Christ was fully personal only through the incarnation; . . . having but one soul, Christ had but one will." 2 The human mind is constituted to inquire, to speculate ; but it is important to bear in mind that there are limits" to the exercise of its powers ; that there are some things which it cannot prove, but must believe. Some of these things are found in its own constitution ; many more in the nature of 1 " Rational Theology," by John Milton Williams, A. M., p. 296. Chicago : Charles H. Kerr and Company. Boston : George H. Ellis. 1888. 2 Bibliotheca Sacra, October, 1889, pp. 622, 625, — "The Idea of Law in Christology." 90 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. the Infinite One, and in his relations to the world and the creatures that he has made. Our only guide in the deep things of God are the Holy Scriptures. In them we read that the one person, Jesus Christ our Lord, was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God, according to the spirit of holiness, that is, his divine nature, which is evident from its antithesis to the phrase " ac cording to the flesh " (Rom. i. 3, 4). To this one person, designated by a divine title, human condi tions and attributes are ascribed ; and to this same one person, designated by a human title, divine attributes are ascribed. The passages in which these ascriptions occur, are found in every part of the New Testament; and prove clearly that the two natures of Christ constitute only one person.1 Whatever perplexity some speculative minds may feel in some questions relating to the con stitution of Christ's person, the belief of the Church will find expression in the statements of the " Symbol of Chalcedon " : — " We . . . teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in God head, and also perfect in manhood ; truly God and truly 1 Shedd's Dogmatic Theology, vol. ii. chap. iv. p. 315. THE GOD-MAN. 9 1 man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body ; consub stantial [coessential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the manhood ; in all things like unto us without sin ; begot ten before all ages of the Father according to the God head, and in these latter days, for us and our salvation, bom of the Virgin Mary, the mother of God, according to the manhood ; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, in- confusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably ; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one sub sistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Christ's human nature was " without sin." He was free from all sinful proclivity. He was tempted, but never with sinful result, and without the possi bility of sinful result. On this point, however, there are two opinions. They are both expressed in two Latin phrases, — one in the phrase non po- tuit peccare (he could not sin) ; the other in the phrase potuit non peccare (he had power not to sin). The first is expressed by the term impeccability, and the second, by the term peccability. The first 1 Schaff's Creeds of Christendom, vol. ii. p. 62. 92 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. implies a possibility of sinning; the second that when he was tempted, he was conscious of a force drawing him to evil, the actuality of which was possible. We must admit the reality of Christ's tempta tion. At the same time it is difficult to contem plate any other result than a sinless one, as a real possibility. The facts stated in the New Testa ment concerning the person of Christ teach that he had a complete human nature. Hence every thing that can be predicated of man in his un- fallen state can be predicated of Christ. The New Testament teaches also that he had a per fect divine nature. Consequently, everything that can be predicated of God can be predicated of Christ. But Christ is only one person, and all his acts are acts of that one person. How, then, was it possible for him to sin? For sin is a personal act. We speak of a polluted and sinful nature, and we say that human nature is polluted and sinful; but we do not say that impersonal human nature — and Christ's human nature is impersonal — sins. Sin is a personal act, and may be also a state of mind ; but Christ's human nature was pure and holy, and his person was theanthropic. THE GOD-MAN. 93 The following language, coming from one of the most learned and orthodox theologians of the present age, may excite some surprise in many minds. Dr. Charles Hodge says : — "This sinlessness of our Lord, however, does not amount to absolute impeccability. It was not a non potuit peccare. If he was a true man he must have been capable of sinning. That he did not sin under the greatest provocation ; that when he was reviled he blessed ; when he suffered he threatened not ; that he was dumb, as a sheep before its shearers, is held up to us as an example. Temptation implies the possibility of sin. If from the constitution of his person it was impos sible for Christ to sin, then his temptation was unreal and without effect, and he cannot sympathize with his people." ] His temptation was real, and yet it was im possible for him to sin. Dr. Shedd correctly remarks : — " Temptability depends upon constitutional suscepti bility, while impeccability depends upon the will. So far as his natural susceptibility, both physical and mental, was concerned, Jesus Christ was open to all the forms of human temptation excepting those that spring out of lust, or corruption of nature. But his peccability, or 1 Systematic Theology, vol. ii. p. 457. New York : Charles Scribner and Company. 1872. 94 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. the possibility of being overcome by these temptations, would depend upon the amount of voluntary resistance which he was able to bring to bear against them. Those temptations were very strong, but if the self-determina tion of his holy will was stronger than they, then they could not induce him to sin, and he would be impecca ble. And yet plainly he would be temptable." 1 Christ's human nature was supported by the divine, which cannot be tempted by anything sinful, neither can it sin. The union of these two natures in one theanthropic person rendered it impossible for our blessed Redeemer to sin. The first Adam potuit non peccare ; the second Adam non potuit peccare. Christ having passed through an experience of temptation is spoken of as the subject of moral development (reTieiWi?). " In all things it be hoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted" (Heb. ii. 17, 18). "And being made perfect, he became the author of 1 Dogmatic Theology, vol. ii. p. 336. New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. 1889. THE GOD-MAN. 95 eternal salvation unto all them that obey him " (Heb. v. 9). The perfecting (TeXelaais) of Christ consisted in qualifying him for his mediatorial office, for the sacred writer says : " In that he hath himself suf fered, being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted." It has also an ethical import, which is included in the official : " He learned obedience by the things which he suffered " (Heb. v. 8). " The perfecting process," observes Dr. Bruce, " has reference at once to Christ's office, to his condition, and to his character." 1 The question whether the Logos would have become incarnate had man never sinned is purely speculative, and not attended with practical results. Nevertheless, it is one which has attracted the attention of some eminent theologians. Dr. Charles Hodge remarks : — " There are some forms of the modern speculations on this subject, which effectually preclude our regarding the incarnation as an act of humiliation. It is assumed, as stated on a previous page, that the union of the divine and human is the culminating point in the regular development of humanity. Its relation to the sinfulness of man and the redemption of the race is merely inciden- 1 Humiliation of Christ, lect. v. p. 297. 9^ CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. tal. It would have been reached had sin never entered into the world. It is obvious that this is a mere philo sophical theory, entirely outside of the Scriptures, and can legitimately have no influence on Christian doctrine. The Bible everywhere teaches that God sent his Son into the world to save sinners ; that he was born of a woman and made under the law for our redemption ; that he became man in order that he might die, and by death destroy the power of Satan. No speculations in consistent with these prevailing representations of the Word of God can be admitted as true by those to whom that Word is the rule of faith." * If sin had not entered into the world, Christ could not have exercised the priestly office; but are we prepared to say that other ends, not imme diately connected with the redemption of our race might not have furnished a reason for his mani festation in our nature? This would have been a great condescension on his part, though it might not be looked upon as an act of humiliation. It would have met a want of our nature. We like to gaze upon something tangible, to see the living example of power and holiness. We are not satis fied unless we hear the voice of him who speaks, and behold the lineaments of his face. Unless we 1 Systematic Theology, vol. ii. p. 611. THE GOD-MAN. 97 can do this, we feel that something in our nature has been left ungratified. The incarnation of the Logos meets this want. Hence the Logos, out of consideration of human mental and moral needs, might have become incarnate had man never sinned. He was from all eternity the Mediator of the universe, — the Prophet, the Revealer of the Father. Can we positively affirm that his incarna tion as the Revealer of the Father to mankind, had they never fallen, was not necessary? We are not competent either to affirm or deny. Dr. Martensen remarks : — " Christ is more than the founder of an historical reli gion ; he is the world-redeeming Mediator, who must be conceived as holding a necessary and eternal relation both to the Father and to mankind. " If, then, the Redeemer of the world stands in an eternal relation to the Father and to humanity, — if his person has not merely an historical, not merely a reli gious and ethical, but also a metaphysical significance, — sin alone cannot have been the ground of his revelation ; for there was no metaphysical necessity for sin entering the world, and Christ could not be our Redeemer if it had [not] been eternally involved in his idea that he should be our Mediator. Are we to suppose that that which is most glorious in the world could only be reached through the medium of sin? that there could have been 7 98 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. no place in the human race for the glory of the Only Begotten One but for sin?"1 On this subject the cloud sits deep, enveloping it in darkness. We cannot penetrate that dark ness. It is enough for us to know that Christ came into the world to save sinners. We cannot in our present state of existence fully understand the cosmical significance of Eph. i. 8-10: God " hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and pru dence; having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensa tion of the fulness of times he might gather to gether in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth ; even in him." The person of Christ, as the Mediator, is the mid dle-point, the centre of the harmony of the uni verse. In him all contradictions are reconciled. We cannot take in the grand sweep of his work : let us bow our heads and adore our great Medi ator and Redeemer. 1 Christian Dogmatics, p. 260. Edinburgh : T. and T. Clark. 1866. PART II. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. /^~*HRIST came into the world as the Mediator ^-^ between God and man. He was qualified for the functions of his mediatorial office by the possession of two natures, — - the divine and the human. " The Word became flesh" (John i. 14). " For verily not of angels doth he take hold, but he taketh hold of the seed of Abraham. Where fore it behoved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren" (Heb. ii. 16, 17). Thus the constitution of his person fitted him to be a days man between the offended Majesty of heaven and sinful man. He lays his hand upon both, and thus effects reconciliation between them. " We are re conciled to God through the death of his Son " (Rom. v. 10). In the covenant of redemption between the Father and the Son, the latter undertook to 100 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. assume our nature, and to make expiation of our sins by the sacrifice of himself. The Father prom ised to him that by virtue of his sacrifice " He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied " (Is. liii. ii). Theologians speak of a covenant of grace, made between the Father and the elect, by which the promises of salvation are made by God the Father to his people. This is taught in those passages which speak of Christ as the mediator of the cove nant: "For this cause he is the mediator of the new covenant " (Heb. ix. 15) ; " He is the media tor of a better covenant " (Heb. viii. 6). " It does not follow from these statements that there are two separate and independent covenants antithetic to the covenant of works. The covenant of grace and that of redemption are two modes and phases of the one evangelical covenant of mercy. The distinction is only a secondary or subdistinction. For when, as in Isaiah xliii. 1-6, the elect are spoken of as the party with whom God the Father makes a covenant, they are viewed as in Christ and one with him. The covenant is not made with them alone and as apart from Christ. This is taught in Galatians iii. 16: 'To Abraham and his seed were the promises made ; ' but this seed < is Christ.' " 1 1 Shedd's Dogmatic Theology, ii. 360, 361. Appendix K. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. IOI The breach of the covenant of works alienated man from God, and gave rise to an abnormal development of the human race. By means of the covenant of redemption and grace, this abnormal development is stayed, and a new development introduced by the progressive destruction of sin. A new relation to God is instituted, by which men become sons of God by adoption through Jesus Christ. They become " heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ" (Rom. viii. 17). This new relationship exalts believers in Christ to the high est dignity. " To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne " (Rev. iii. 21). The office of Christ, as Mediator, is viewed un der the three aspects of Prophet, Priest, and King. Under the Old Covenant, the Prophet appeared as a witness in behalf of the truth; the High- Priest presented an offering for the sins of the people ; and the King guarded and protected them. Under the New Covenant these mediato rial functions are united in Christ, and in him find their perfection and spiritual glory. He is the Mediator of the New Covenant; and all these functions have their origin in his mediatorial char acter ; and meet man's threefold misery, — igno- 102 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. ranee, guilt, and bondage. In this character, the truth, justice, grace, mercy, and love of God unite their beams and shine in their full radiance. " O unexampled love, Love nowhere to be found less than divine ! Hail, Son of God, Saviour of men, thy name Shall be the copious matter of my song Henceforth, and never shall my harp thy praise Forget, nor from thy Father's praise disjoin." 1 1 Milton's Paradise Lost, book iii. CHRIST THE PROPHET. 103 CHAPTER II. CHRIST THE PROPHET. ' I "HE Scriptural meaning of the term " prophet " is one who speaks for another in his name, and by his authority (Ex. iv. 14-16; comp. chap. vii. 1, 2). This passage teaches that the prophetical function is not confined to the pre diction of future events. The utterances of the prophets refer to the past, the present, and the future. They contain instruction, admonition, and prediction. Christ is " that prophet that should come into the world" (John vi. 14; Luke xxiv. 19). He is the source of truth, and particularly of that truth which relates to the salvation of men. This is im plied in the names given to him in Scripture. He is Jehovah, our righteousness (Jer. xxiii. 5, comp. with 1 Cor. i. 30) ; Jehovah, the First and the Last (Isa. xliv. 6, comp. with Rev. i. 17; Isa. xlviii. 12- 16, comp. with Rev. xxii. 13); Jehovah of hosts (Isa. vi. 1-3, comp. with John xii. 41 ; Isa. viii. 13, 14, comp. with 1 Peter ii. 8) ; Jehovah the shepherd 104 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. (Isa. xl. 10, ii, comp. with Heb. xiii. 20) ; God the Word (John i. i); the Counsellor (Isa. ix. 6) ; the Witness (Isa. Iv. 4) ; the Apostle (Heb. iii. 1) ; the Truth (John xiv. 6) ; he alone knows and re veals (Matt. xi. 27; John iii. 2, 13, 34, xvii. 6, 14, 26; Heb. i. 1, 2); and his doctrine is that of the father (John viii. 26, 28, xii. 49, 50, xiv. 10, 24, xv. 15, xvii. 8, 26). In the prologue of Saint John's Gospel, the pro phetical, or teaching, function of the Mediator is indicated in the brief sentence, he is " the light of men " (John i. 4). It is more fully unfolded in the following statements : " I am the light of the world" (John ix. 5); "the true light, even the light which lighteth every man coming into the world" (John i. 9, R. V.); "a light to lighten the Gentiles " (Luke ii. 32) ; the Word dwelling " among us full of grace and truth" (John i. 14); the Christ, " in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge " (Coloss. ii. 3). Hence the voice from heaven to mankind : " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him " (Matt, xviii. 5). Christ spake, in all his utterances, as one who had authority (Mark i. 22). With a consciousness of infallibility, he prefaced his statements with the CHRIST THE PROPHET. 105 words, " I say unto you " (Matt. v. 22, 26, 32, 34). The prophets of the Old Testament com menced their messages with such phrases as "the Lord said unto me " (Is. viii. 1) ; " the Lord spake thus to me" (ver. 11); "the word of the Lord came unto me saying " (Jer. i. 4) ; " the word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest " (Ezek. i. 3) ; " the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea" (i. 2); "the word of the Lord that came to Joel " (i. 1) ; " thus saith the Lord " (Amos i. 9) ; " the word of the Lord came unto Jonah" (i. 1), etc. But "Christ speaks out of the fulness of his own immediate intuition." He never says, " The word of the Lord came to me." His words are : " Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation ; but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God ; and they that hear shall live " (John v. 24, 25) ; " I am the resur rection and the life : he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live " (John xi. 25); "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John xiv. 6) ; " If any man thirst, let him come 106 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. unto me, and drink " (John vii. 37) ; " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest " (Matt. xi. 28) ; " But 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 xv. 26) ; " If I depart, I will send him unto you " (John xvi. 7). These statements, and many others which might be adduced, show clearly that Christ drew his teachings from the fulness of his own divine nature. (1) Christ executes his prophetical office person ally and directly. This he did in the theoph- anies of the Old Testament; in his appearances, as Jehovah, to individuals before the Flood, to the prophets of the chosen people of God ; and at the close of the Old Testament economy, in his incarnation, which was the full bloom of prophecy. By it he revealed the Father in all the richness and plenitude of his grace (John i. 17, 18). "God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son " (Heb. i. 1, 2).1 (2) Christ executes his prophetical office medi ately by the Holy Spirit. He said to his disci ples, before he suffered on the cross : " Nevertheless 1 Appendix L. CHRIST THE PROPHET. 107 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, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me ; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more ; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, 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 shall he speak ; and he shall show you things to come. He shall glorify me : for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you " (John xvi. 7-14). (3) Christ executes his prophetical office me diately also through the Christian ministry and the Church. The Apostles were his inspired agents to teach and to preach the gospel. He commanded them to " go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things " which he had commanded his Apostles; and he promised to be with them " alway, even unto the 108 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. end of the world " (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20). The promise to be with them unto the end of the world includes, of course, all their successors in the Christian ministry ; for the Apostles were all dead before the end of the first century. Christian ministers, therefore, inasmuch as they teach and preach in the name of Christ, discharge mediately the function of Christ's prophetical office. Paul says, " We are ambassadors for Christ " (2 Cor. v. 20) ; " workers together with him " (2 Cor. vi. 1 ; see also Eph. iv. 11-13). At Oxford, England, in 1838, a book was pub lished bearing the title, " On the Prophetical Office of the Church." The Church is a great educational institution, established by God for our edification in divine knowledge, faith, and holiness. The Church is the body of Christ (Eph. i. 23) ; and by it the manifold wisdom of God is to be made known to " the principalities and powers in heavenly places" (Eph. iii. 10). In all the ways specified Christ executes his office as a Prophet. He came " From dark'ning scales of vice to clear the inward sight; And on the eye-balls of the blind to pour celestial light." Paraphrase xxxix. CHRIST THE PRIEST. 109 CHAPTER III. CHRIST THE PRIEST.1 A PRIEST is a mediator in religion. " Every ¦*¦ *¦ high priest, being taken from among men, is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins " (Heb. v. 1). "And no man taketh the honor unto himself, but when he is called of God, even as was Aaron. So Christ also glorified not himself to be made a high-priest, but he that spake unto him, ' Thou art my Son,' as he saith also in another place, ' Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek ' " (Heb. v. 4-6, R. V.). Sacrifice and the expiatory priest were in exist ence long before Aaron and the Mosaic institute. Abel offered sacrifice " of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof" (Gen. iv. 4). "Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered 1 Appendix M. IIO CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. burnt offerings on the altar " (Gen. viii. 20). Abra ham offered sacrifice (Gen. xxii. 13), and Jacob (Gen. xxxv. 7). These sacrifices were under the patriarchal dispensation, and were offered up by the head of the family. In the time of Moses there was an advance upon Patriarchal sacrifice. First there is a transitional period in the Passover sacrifice (Ex. xii.) and in the Covenant sacrifice (Ex. xxiv. 5-8). Then Aaron and his sons were consecrated to the priest's office (Ex. xxviii.). The Levitical priesthood was typical, and des tined to pass away when the great Antitype should come (Heb. vii., viii., ix.). " The first tabernacle was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as per taining to the conscience ; which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation. But Christ being come an high- priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, — that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, CHRIST THE PRIEST. Ill having obtained eternal redemption for us " (Heb. ix. 8-12). The priestly office of Christ, unlike his pro phetical, is administered directly, not mediately. He by himself purged our sins (Heb. i. 3). " He ever liveth to make intercession for them " (Heb. vii. 25). The priestly work of Christ is treated under two heads, — (1) Atonement; (2) Intercession. 1. The Scriptures expressly declare that Christ made atonement, or satisfaction, for our sins. John the Baptist pointed him out as " the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world " (John i. 29). In Matt. xx. 28, Christ himself says " The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many." " This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you " (Luke xxii. 20). " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us" (Gal. iii. 13). " Christ also hath loved us, and hath given him self for us an offering and a sacrifice to God " (Eph. v. 2). " In due time Christ died for the ungodly" (Rom. v. 6). "By whom we have now received the atonement " (Rom. v. 1 1). " He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all," etc. (Rom. viii. 32). " For Christ also hath 112 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. once suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust" (i Pet. iii. 18). "He is the propitiation for our sins " (i John ii. 2). " Unto him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by his blood " (Rev. i. 5, R- V.). " Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood " (Rev. v. 9). These passages, and many others that might be cited, declare plainly that Christ made satisfaction for our sins. As guilt must from the nature of God and of his law be expiated, it was necessary that Christ, having taken upon himself to re deem man, should shed his blood, for "without the shedding of blood is no remission " (Heb. ix. 22). By the death of Christ guilt was expiated and Divine justice propitiated. The spotless Lamb of God paid " the rigid satisfaction, death for death." It is not our purpose to discuss the various theories of the atonement; suffice it to say that it is vicarious and propitiatory. Christ offered up himself a sacrificial victim in our stead; and by this sacrifice of himself he propitiated God, whose wrath our sins had provoked, and to the penalty of whose holy law we had made ourselves obnoxious. His sacrifice satisfied the law, and appeased God, who was bound by his character as the Moral CHRIST THE PRIEST. I 13 Governor of the universe to execute the penalty of that law. Dr. Shedd remarks : — " An atonement makes its primary impression upon the party to whom it is made, not upon the party by whom it is made. When a man does a wrong to a fel low-man, and renders satisfaction for the wrong, this satisfaction is intended to influence the object, not the subject ; to produce an effect upon the man who has suf- ered the wrong, not the man who did the wrong. Sub jective atonement is a contradiction. Atoning to one's self is like lifting one's self. The objective nature of atonement is wrought into the very phraseology of Scrip ture, as the analysis of the Biblical terms just made clearly shows. To ' cover ' sin is to cover it from the sight of God, not of the sinner. To ' propitiate ' is to propitiate God, not man." J 2. The second part of Christ's priestly work is intercession. John says : " If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John ii. 1). "Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them " (Heb. vii. 25). " I pray for them which thou hast given me ; neither pray I for these alone ; but for them also i Dogmatic Theology, vol. ii. pp. 393, 394. 8 114 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. which shall believe on me through their word " (John xvii. 9, 20). Christ interceded for his people, as we see by the last passage quoted, when he was on earth. He now intercedes in heaven, at the right hand of his Father. As to the manner of his intercession, we are not informed. But as it is a part of his priestly office, we may suppose that he presents himself before the Father, in his human nature, and in the merit of his sacrifice, as the ground of bestowing on his people all necessary blessings. This seems to be the meaning of the Apostle Paul, when he asks: " Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us " (Rom. viii. 34). The facts that he died and rose again, and sat down at the right hand of God, fit him for the work of intercession. Had he not died for us, he would have no plea to offer. The law would still con demn. Moreover, as Intercessor he presents the prayers of his people, which are offered up to God in his name. This furnishes a firm ground of con fidence and consolation to believers, for " seeing we have a great high-priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God," we are exhorted CHRIST THE PRIEST. 115 to " hold fast our profession. For we have not an high-priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us there fore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need " (Heb. iv. 14-16). Il6 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. CHAPTER IV. CHRIST THE KING. " A RT th°U a king then?" asked Pilate- "Jesus ¦*¦ *¦ answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth " (John xviii. 37). " My kingdom is not of this world " (ver. 36). The dominion, or sovereign authority of Christ, consists in the unlimited power which he pos sesses over the creatures of his hand, and may be viewed either as necessary or official. It is neces sary, inherent, and underived, viewing him as God ; it is official and delegated, viewing him as Mediator. " The man whose name is The Branch . . . shall be a priest upon his throne" (Zech. vi. 12, 13). There is no incongruity between the mitre and the crown, the altar and the throne. " Mel- chizedek, king of Salem, was the priest of the most high God" (Gen. xiv. 18). Indeed, Christ's CHRIST THE KING. 117 mediatorial dominion is necessary to accomplish the salvation of his people, who are surrounded by so many powerful enemies. " He must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet" (1 Cor. xv. 25).1 We may judge of its importance from the fre quency, with which Christ is spoken of in the Holy Scriptures under the character of a King. The prophet Zechariah announces his coming advent thus : " Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem : behold thy King cometh unto thee : he is just and having salvation ; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass" (ix. 9). "Behold a king shall reign in righteousness" (Isa. xxxii. 1). " And the key of the house of David shall be upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open" (Isa. xxii. 22). " And David my servant shall be king over them " (Ezek. xxxvii. 24). " Of the in crease of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever" (Isa. ix. 7). The mediatorial dominion of Christ is necessary 1 Appendix N. Il8 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. to the fulfilment of God's gracious purposes of salvation. Christ is " the Saviour of the world " (John iv. 42). " Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins " (Acts v. 31). To save requires kingly power. Such power is necessary to give effect to his pro phetical and priestly work. As a prophet, he pub lishes ; as a priest, he purchases ; and as a king, he applies. He gives repentance and forgiveness of sins. He sends his Holy Spirit to be our teacher, comforter, and sanctifier. Ministers of the Gospel are his ambassadors. " His state is kingly." It is fitting that Christ should be invested with mediatorial dominion as the reward of his obedi ence unto death. " Ought not Christ to have suffered these, and to enter into his glory?" (Luke xxiv. 26). " Wherefore " (because he humbled himself) " God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father " (Phil. ii. 9-1 1). " We see Jesus, CHRIST THE KING. 119 who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor ; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man " (Heb. ii. 9). The Scriptures leave us in no doubt as to the reality of Christ's dominion and regal power. The passages quoted fully establish their reality. They were prefigured by types. Melchizedek was a type of Christ (Heb. v. 6). The kings of Israel and Judah — if not all, at least David and Solomon — were types of Christ. He is spoken of in the prophets under the name of David ; and in the wis dom of his administration, in the extent of the territory over which he reigned, and in the peace- fulness of his reign, Solomon was eminently a type of the Messiah, in whose days " shall the righteous flourish ; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth," and he "shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth " (Ps. lxxii. 7, 8). The Scriptures leave us in no doubt as to the reality of Christ's mediatorial dominion ; but a question may arise as to its nature. It is strictly and properly spiritual. This is what our Saviour evidently meant when he said, " My kingdom is not of this world" (John xviii. 36). It is not of 120 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. this world as to its principles, nor in its character ; and it does not come into collision with secular authority, provided the secular power does not usurp its spiritual functions. Even then the weap ons of its warfare are not carnal, but spiritual. It commands its subjects to " render under Cassar the things which are Cassar's ; and unto God the things which are God's" (Matt. xxii. 21). But while we speak of Christ's mediatorial king dom as spiritual, we do not thereby mean that it can have no sort of connection with things secular. Its subjects are not of the world, as to their char acter; but they are in it as the place of their abode. As saints they are numbered among Christ's spiritual subjects; as citizens they oc cupy their places in the State, and act their parts in the offices and institutions of civil so ciety. Thus, if the saints belong to the kingdom of Christ, this kingdom can never be so strictly spiritual as to exclude all sort of connection with matter. Moreover, the kingdom of Christ has a visible as well as an invisible form. A visible church must have visible laws, visible ordinances, visible subjects and visible office-bearers. This world is the sphere, in which these laws are promulgated, CHRIST THE KING. 121 these ordinances are observed, these subjects re side, and these office-bearers perform their func tions. Erections for the ordinances of worship and temporal emoluments for the support of the ministry are also required. All these things im ply a connection with this world as the sphere of their existence and operation ; at the same time they are merely the shell, not the substance. The animating spirit is not of this world. It comes from heaven, and leads to heaven. It is of heaven but works through these earthly forms, transform ing them into the image of the heavenly. Thus the kingdom of Christ subdues the world, not with carnal weapons, but by the power of the spirit, and makes the wilderness and solitary place glad, and the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose (Isa. xxxv. i). This blessed reign shall extend over the whole world, for " He shall have domin ion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth" (Ps. lxxii. 8). Jesus said: " All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth " (Matt, xxviii. 18). The Apostle Paul says: He " put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church " (Eph. i. 22). These words are expressive of universality in the largest sense. Heaven and earth comprise 122 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. the universe. Our Saviour said to his disciples: "All things are delivered unto me of my Father" (Matt. xi. 27) ; and of the same purport are the words of Peter at Cassarea: " He is Lord of all " (Acts x. 36). The Apostle Paul says: "Ye are complete in him, which is the head of all princi pality and power" (Col. ii. 10). The same au thor, if we are at liberty to assume that he is the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, says : " But one in a certain place, testified saying, What is man that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of thy hands ; thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him " (Heb. ii. 6-8). The purpose for which the words of this Psalm (Ps. viii.) are quoted shows that they have reference to the Messiah. Universality of dominion cannot be affirmed of man, in the ordinary sense of that term, inasmuch as other worlds are not made subject to him. Moreover, a part of the Psalm is applied else where to Christ. It will contribute to the better understanding CHRIST THE KING. 1 23 of the universality of Christ's mediatorial domin ion to specify more particularly some passages of Scripture bearing on the subject. 1. " He is the Head of the body, the Church " (Col. i. 18). Its doctrines are the doctrines which he taught. Its ordinances are his institutions. Its laws are his laws. Its ministers possess no legis lative authority ; the matter of their faith and their line of conduct are sanctioned by him. Their authority is wholly ministerial, and is subordi nate to that of Christ. They are his servants. They preach in the name of Jesus, and baptize in his name. They inculcate duty, and exercise discipline in his name. 2. The Church receives from Christ a character of visible unity. The idea of unity is implied in the names by which it is designated. It is the Lamb's wife. It is a body, a house, or household, a king dom. There are many members in the body, but the body itself is one. There may be many prov inces, but the kingdom is one. Hence, says the Apostle : " There is one body and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. We being many, are one bread and one body " (Eph. iv. 4, 5; 1 Cor. x. 17). 124 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. 3. The visible church Catholic possesses a dura tion commensurate with time. It is a perpetual society. It has existed, under different dispensa tions, from the beginning of our race until the present time. Its sun shall not go down (Isa. Ix. 20). Its King has said: "Upon this rock I will build my church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. xvi. 18). Christ exercises mediatorial rule over the Church for the accomplishment of the most important ends. It is by the Church that the manifold wis dom of God is made known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places (Eph. iii. 10). The Church manifests God's glory. " This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise" (Isa. xliii. 21). "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace " (Eph. i. 5, 6). " But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people ; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light" (1 Pet. ii. 9). This great object is accomplished by the exhi bition and maintenance of Divine truth, which the CHRIST THE KING. 125 King and Head of the Church has committed to her as a sacred deposit. This truth she is under the weightiest obligations to keep and promulgate. Christ exercises his mediatorial dominion over the nations as well as over the Church. In the Word of God subjection to Jesus Christ as Mediator is directly enjoined upon civil rulers. " Be wise now, therefore, ye kings ; be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little " (Ps. ii. 10, 12). Acts iv. 25—27 shows clearly that this psalm refers to Christ; and the second verse of the psalm shows that it refers to him in his mediatorial capacity. It is against the Lord and against his anointed that the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together. It is against the King of Zion to whom God has given the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession, against him who shall break the heathen with a rod of iron (ver. 8, 9). The seventy-second psalm — which in the opin ion of the best interpreters refers to Christ1 — ascribes to him universal dominion over the whole 1 Only in a very inferior and subordinate sense can it be under stood of Solomon. 126 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. world. " The Kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall bow down before him : all nations shall serve him. His name shall endure forever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed" (ver. 10, n, 17). Isaiah, referring to New Testament times, says : " Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I will lift mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my stand ard to the people : and they shall bring their sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nurs ing-fathers, and their queens thy nursing-mothers ; they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and shall lick up the dust of thy feet" (chap. xlix. 22, 23). The Messiah is styled the governor among the nations (Ps. xxii. 28). He is higher than the kings of the earth (Ps lxxxix. 27). He is the king of nations (Jer. x. 6, 7) ; " the prince of the kings of the earth " (Rev. i. 5). The kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ (Rev. xi. 15). Christ, having all power in heaven and earth, gives existence to the nations, exercises an admin istration over them, watches over them, demands CHRIST THE KING. 1 27 obedience from them, overrules rebellion, exe cutes judgments, opens a way for the gospel, pro tects his Church from injury, and makes her the regenerating agency in the world. Through her he effects an entire change among the nations. Some teach that civil government originates with God, as the God of nature, and not the God of Grace. Paul represents it as " the ordi nance of God " (Rom. xiii. 2) ; and Peter as the " ordinance of man " (1 Pet. ii. 13). God has laid the foundation of it in our nature; but it takes its form from man. Apart from God's plan of grace, it is not probable that it would exist. Had no remedial scheme been provided, the human race must in all probability have perished. God could not have held continued and friendly inter course with man after he had renounced His au thority. The penalty of rebellion must have been executed. When the guilty pair put forth their hands, plucked the forbidden fruit, and ate, — " Earth felt the wound ; and Nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe That all was lost. Earth trembled from her entrails as again In pangs ; and Nature gave a second groan ; Sky lower'd, and mutt'ring thunder, some sad drops 128 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. Wept at completing of the mortal sin Original." i Out of the lowering sky a voice was heard, — " Father, Account me man ; I for his sake will leave Thy bosom." 2 The sun broke through the gloom, and " Beyond compare the Son of God was seen Most glorious."3 The perpetuity of Christ's mediatorial kingdom is a topic on which some diversity of opinion ex ists. The Apostle Paul says : " Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all" (i Cor. xv. 24—28). 1 Paradise Lost, book ix. 2 Ibid., book iii. " Ibid. CHRIST THE KING. 129 From this passage it has been inferred that Christ will cease from the administration of his mediatorial office and power, and that, as a faith ful ambassador whose commission is finished, he will give it back to Him who appointed him, and will return to his own personal station as the divine and eternal Son ; and then a new order of the moral universe will commence, when all holy creatures, delivered and secured from sin, shall possess the immediate fruition of the Father. Without going into a critical examination of the passage quoted, it may be sufficient to remark, (1) That the term kingdom does not, in this in stance, necessarily signify kingship, reign, or the possession and exercise of kingly power, but dominion, or realm, — that over which the king reigns. The kingdom of Christ, in this sense, includes the Church, or spiritual kingdom, and all things in the world subordinate to her interests. It is the opinion of some eminent theologians that the kingdom to be delivered up at the end of time is Christ's government over things outside of the Church, and more especially her enemies. Ac cording to this view, the kingdom to be delivered up is the kingdom of this lower world, which is to be consumed at his coming. (2) But suppose 9 130 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. that the word kingdom is not used in this restricted sense, that it includes the Church, the proper realm of the mediatorial King; may not the passage mean that Christ gives in to the Father a full account of his mediatorial undertaking, and shows that he has accomplished the work committed to him ? All that the Apostle intends may be that the administration of the kingdom, after the end of time, will not be the same as it is at present. The administration of the kingdom is conducted, at present, by the intervention of outward instru ments; after the close of this scene of things it will be conducted by the immediate, direct, and personal agency of the Mediator. The Son of God, personally considered, is equal to the Father. This is a part of the Trinitarian Creed. But the passage under consideration says : " then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all" (ver. 28). If the Son is to be eter nally subject to the Father, it is impossible to sep arate this idea from perpetuity of his mediatorial office; for as Son he is equal to the Father; but as Mediator, he is inferior in official rank, or in his position in the economy of redemption. It seems impossible that the mediatorial charac- CHRIST THE KING. 131 ter and dominion of Christ should cease. If the saints in glory retain the character of redeemed, Christ must retain that of Redeemer. The rela tionship must be perpetual. Many passages of Scripture, unless their lan guage is hyperbolical, teach the perpetuity of Christ's mediatorial kingdom. They are such as the following, and might be multiplied : " Thy throne, O God, is for ever, and ever; " " Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy do minion endureth throtighout all generations;" " Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom to order it, and to establish it with judgment, and with justice, from henceforth, even for ever; " " In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed ; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever; " " His dominion is an everlasting domin ion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed; " " He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end; " " An entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the 132 CHRISTUS MEDIATOR. everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; " " The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever." Christ is the Lord of Glory, King of Zion, King of Saints, King of nations, King of Glory. Jude says : " To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory, and majesty, and dominion, and power, both now and ever" (ver. 25). John says: "To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever" (Rev. i. 6); "And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever " (Rev. v. 13). In these passages everlasting dominion is ascribed to Christ as Mediator. We may, therefore, justly repeat, in conclusion, the sublime doxology of Jude : " To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen." 1 1 Messiah the Prince, or the Mediatorial Dominion of Jesus Christ, by William Symington, D. D., pp. 348-379. Edinburgh: William Whyte and Co. 1839. APPENDIX. APPENDIX. D A. Page 36. R. SCHAFF publishes, in his translation of Lange's Commentary on John, a copy of a little poem, by Victor Strauss, which " beautifully reproduces and expounds the Johannean idea of the Logos in his rela tion to God and the world." Vor Anbeginn der Schopfung und der Zeiten 1st Gottes Eingeborner ewiglich, Die Fiille selbst von Gottes Wesenheiten, Das ew'ge Du, in dem des Vaters Ich Des eignen Wesens Wesenheit besiegelt, Den eignen Abgrund aufgedeckt in sich, Die Hand die Gottes Tief ihm selbst entriegelt, Sein Wille selbst in anfangloser That, Sein Abglanz, der ihm selbst sich wiederspiegelt. Das Wort, das er in sich geboren hat Zum wahren Sein, drin Fiille der Naturen Ins ungeschaff 'ne Dasein ewig trat. 136 APPENDIX. Da ist der Grund, aus dem die Weltenfluren Hervorgesprosst zum Anbeginn der Zeit, Als ew'ges Dasein ward zu Creaturen ; Und Lebensfull' in reinster Seligkeit Ging aus von Ihm in die Erschaff'nen alle; Es war nur Licht, war keine Dunkelheit.1 Translation. Before the world's and time's beginning Was God's Only-Born eternally, All God's fulness in Him dwelling ; Th' Eternal Thou, in image sealing The Father's I in outline clearly, The Abyss of Deity revealing ; The Hand, the depths of God unlocking, Yea, His Will in act beginningless, The Godhead's glory clear reflecting; The Word from God Himself proceeding, Existence real, — Creation's fulness In Him, th' Unmade, forever centring ; The Source, from whom the worlds forthcoming, At time's dawn, were clad in virgin bloom, On creatures endless life bestowing : Life's fulness, with pure bliss o'erflowing, Went forth from him to all his creatures : In him was light, darkness repelling. 1 Das Kirchenjahr im Hause, p. 63. Heidelberg. 1845. APPENDIX. 137 B. Page 43. Justin Martyr held that in the human soul is some thing allied to the Logos, — a seed of it implanted (the Aoyos a-irepfiaTiKos) in which Revelation finds a point of connection. — Neander's History of Christian Dogmas, vol. i. p. 141. The Aoyos o-n-epp.aTiK.6s constitutes the transition- link betwixt Christianity and everything true and good in the times antecedent to Christianity, — an idea which was laid hold of and prosecuted still farther by the Alex andrians. — Neander's Church History, vol. i. p. 666. C. 1 Page 61. Wherever the peculiar principle of Gnosticism gained the ascendency, the intermediate divine being became individualized in a descending series of celestial natures (ala>ve?o-i?, permeatio, quae non est mutua, sed divina natura permeat huma- nam. — Hutterus Redivivus, oder Dogmatik der Evan- gelisch-Lutherischen Kirche. Leipzig. 1848. I. Page 87. On the various types of the doctrine of the Kenosis, see Dr. Bruce on the Humiliation of Christ (the sixth series of the Cunningham Lectures), Appendix, pp. 437 ff. See also Dr. Delitzsch's System of Biblical Psychol ogy, pp. 203, 387. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1869. 140 APPENDIX. K. Page ioo. Some theologians are accustomed to speak of three covenants : — I. The covenant of works made with Adam, (a) the condition of which was perfect obedience ; (b) its promise, life ; (c) its penalty, death. II. The covenant of redemption between the Father and the Son, in reference to the salvation of man. In this covenant, (a) the Father gave the Son a work to do ; and (b) the Son undertook to fulfil it. III. The covenant of grace between God and his people, " wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto life his Holy Spirit to make them willing and able to believe." L. Page 106. As Prophet, his appearance in the world constitutes a new era, in respect to which it is said by the Apostle John, "the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth." Not that Christ taught or professed to teach anything absolutely new; preceding teachers of the Church had been his own messengers, endowed with a portion of his own spirit ; and he could not appear in APPENDIX. 141 a relation of absolute independence toward them, far less assume a position of antagonism, as if coming to destroy what they had established. The germ already existed in the divine institutions and prophetical teachings of the old covenant, of all that was to develop itself in him ; but in the development of that germ, there was such a reach of discernment, such a breadth of view, such a loftiness of aim, such a many-sided fulness of instruction, and all cast into forms so admirably fitted to take a deep and lasting hold of the hearts of man kind, as has left even the greatest of those who went before at an immeasurable distance from him. — Impe rial Bible Dictionary, sub. v. Christ fesus. M. Page 109. The office of priest leads on to that of high-priest, a title which gives expression to the idea of propitiation. All priesthood, all sacrifices, in the religions which pre ceded Christianity, rest on and spring from this idea as their foundation and main root. But as Christ is the end and fulness of prophecy, all priesthood and sacrifice find their consummation and fulfilment in him who is himself the true High-Priest and the true Sacrifice. No created being, — to say nothing of a sinful creature, — no creature but the Son only can be the reconciling Mediator between God and sinners, and the setter-up of the new covenant. — Martensen's Christian Dog matics, p. 302. 142 APPENDIX. N. Page 117. Exalted above the limitations of time and space, he [Christ] reveals now eternally as the Head of the King dom of Grace ; a kingdom which is not only the centre and goal of all human history, but which embraces within its range the world of spirits also ; that kingdom of grace which is to take up into itself, and to glorify the entire kingdom of nature, and thus become in the end one universal Kingdom of Glory (regnum glorice). This grand conception of Christ's exaltation is unfolded in the three articles of Christian dogma, the descent into the realm of death (Hades), the Resurrection, and the session on the right hand of God the Father. The en tire series of Old Testament prophesies regarding a tri umphing Messiah is fulfilled in this exaltation of Christ ; prophecies which constitute an antithesis to those de scribing a suffering Messiah, and which usually represent the Messiah under the type of a theocratic King, who is the head of the people of God. — Martensen's Christian Dogmatics, p. 315. INDEX. Adoptio, 73. Alexandria, Council of, 65. Alford, Henry, D.D., 18, 34. Anhypostasia, 68. Apollinaris, 64. Apollinarianism, 64. Aquinas, Thomas, 75, 76. Arianism, 62. Augustine, 24. B. Bible Commentary, 47. Bibliotheca Sacra, 89. Blackburn, W. M., D.D., 58, 59, 62, 69. Brentz, 80, 82. Bruce, Alexander, B., D.D., 83, 87. 95- Butler, Bishop, 15. C. Chalcedon, Council of, 66, 69, 70. Chemnitz, 81. Christ, humiliation of, 72, 83, 87, 93! ubiquity of, 78; im peccability of, 91 ; reality of his temptation, 92 ; Teleiosis of, 95; his mediatorial office viewed under three aspects, 101 ; his prophetical office, 103 ff. ; priestly office, 109 ff. ; his kingly office, 116 ff. Christology, principal errors of, 62; Lutheran, 79; Reformed, 83- Creeds of Christendom, 57, 64, 69, 70, 91. Constantinople, Council of, 69, 72. D. Day, analysis of Plato, 18. Delitzsch, 14. Diodorus, 13. Dorner, Dr., 21, 57, 77. Doketism, 59. Dynamists, 61. E. Ebionism, 60. Ecclesiasticus, 30, 31. Elipandus of Toledo, 73. 144 INDEX. Ephesus, Council of, 69. Eutyches, 66. Eutychianism, 67. Ewald, 32. F. Felix of Urgella, 73. Flesh, meanings of, 50, 51. Formula of Concord, 82. G. Gerhard, E. V., D.D., 71. Gnosticism, 58. Gospel of Saint John, prologue of, 17. Godet, Dr., 40, 41. Grace, Covenant of, 100. Hagenbach, History of Doc trines, 73, 75. Hodge, Charles, D.D., 93. I. Incarnation, fundamental mir acle of Christianity, 51 ; phil osophical objections to, 56. Jesus, son of Sirach, 30. Josephus, 13. Judaism, 58. K. Kenosis, 87 ff. LlDDELL & SCOTT, 17. Liddon, Canon, 25. Logos, signification of, 17 ; Johan nean doctrine of, 54; contro versies concerning, 57; would the Logos have become incar nate, had man never sinned ? 96. Lucian, 13. Luther, 78. M. Malach Jehovah, 26 ff. Martensen, 51, 97. Mediator, meaning of the word, 13- Milton, 40, 86, 102, 127. Modalists, 61. Monarchianism, 61 . N. Nature, — distinguished from Person, 67 ; duality of, 67. Neander, Church History, 19; History of Dogmas, 34, 42, 74. Nestorius and Nestorianism, 65. Nice, Council of, 64. Nihilianism, 75. Oehler, Theology of the Old Testament, 2S, 29. INDEX. '45 P. Farseeism, 58. Pascal, Pensees de, 71. Person, — distinguished from Na ture, 67 ; unity of, 68. Peter Lombard, 75. Philo, 13, 19. Plato, 19. Polybius, 13. Praxeas, 62. R. Redemption, Covenant of, 99. Shedd, Dr., 59, 65, 75, 90, 93, 100, 113. Symington. William, D.D., 132. T. Tennemann, — Manual of the History of Philosophy, 20. Tours, Synod of, 75. Townsend, 21. Tubingen School, 53. Van Oosterzee, Dr., 56. W. William II., King of Prussia, 87. Williams, John Milton, 89. Wisdom, Book of, 31. Wordsworth, 35. Zwingli, 78. YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 08540 2775 « •^ V