the fact that obedience is due to God, instead of being optional or a
gratuity. No creature can claim anything for his obedience. If God
rewards, he rewards in virtue of his goodness and faithfulness, not in
virtue of his justice or his righteousness. What the creature cannot
claim, however, Christ _can_ claim, and the rewards which are goodness to
the creature are righteousness to Christ. God rewards Christ’s work _for_
us and _in_ us.
Bruch, Eigenschaftslehre, 280-282, and John Austin, Province of
Jurisprudence, 1:88-93, 220-223, both deny, and rightly deny, that
justice bestows rewards. Justice simply punishes infractions of
law. In _Mat. 25:34—_“inherit the kingdom”—inheritance implies no
merit; _46_—the wicked are adjudged to eternal punishment; the
righteous, not to eternal reward, but to eternal life. _Luke
17:7-10—_“when ye shall have done all the things that are
commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done
that which it was our duty to do.” _Rom. 6:23_—punishment is the
“_wages of sin_”: but salvation is “_the gift of God_”; _2:6_—God
rewards, not _on account of_ man’s work but “_according to his
works_.” Reward is thus seen to be in Scripture a matter of grace
to the creature; only to the Christ who works for us in atonement,
and in us in regeneration and sanctification, is reward a matter
of debt (see also _John 6:27_ and _2 John 8_). Martineau, Types,
2:86, 244, 249—“Merit is toward man; virtue toward God.”
All mere service is unprofitable, because it furnishes only an
equivalent to duty, and there is no margin. Works of
supererogation are impossible, because our all is due to God. He
would have us rise into the region of friendship, realize that he
has been treating us not as Master but as Father, enter into a
relation of uncalculating love. With this proviso that rewards are
matters of grace, not of debt, we may assent to the maxim of
Solon: “A republic walks upon two feet—just punishment for the
unworthy and due reward for the worthy.” George Harris, Moral
Evolution, 139—“Love seeks righteousness, and is satisfied with
nothing other than that.” But when Harris adopts the words of the
poet: “The very wrath from pity grew, From love of men the hate of
wrong,” he seems to us virtually to deny that God hates evil for
any other reason than because of its utilitarian disadvantages,
and to imply that good has no independent existence in his nature.
Bowne, Ethics, 171—“Merit is desert of reward, or better, desert
of moral approval.” Tennyson: “For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.” Baxter: “_Desert_ is written
over the gate of hell; but over the gate of heaven only, _The Gift
of God_.”
(_e_) Justice in God, as the revelation of his holiness, is devoid of all
passion or caprice. There is in God no selfish anger. The penalties he
inflicts upon transgression are not vindictive but vindicative. They
express the revulsion of God’s nature from moral evil, the judicial
indignation of purity against impurity, the self-assertion of infinite
holiness against its antagonist and would-be destroyer. But because its
decisions are calm, they are irreversible.
Anger, within certain limits, is a duty of man. _Ps. 97:10—_“ye
that love Jehovah, hate evil”; _Eph. 4:28—_“Be ye angry, and sin
not.” The calm indignation of the judge, who pronounces sentence
with tears, is the true image of the holy anger of God against
sin. Weber, Zorn Gottes, 28, makes wrath only the jealousy of
love. It is more truly the jealousy of holiness. Prof. W. A.
Stevens, Com. on _1 Thess. 2:10_—“_Holily_ and _righteously_ are
terms that describe the same conduct in two aspects; the former,
as conformed to God’s character in itself; the latter, as
conformed to his law; both are positive.” Lillie, on _2 Thess.
1:6_—“Judgment is ‘_a righteous thing with God_.’ Divine justice
requires it for its own satisfaction.” See Shedd, Dogm. Theol.,
1:175-178, 365-385; Trench, Syn. N. T., 1:180, 181.
Of Gaston de Foix, the old chronicler admirably wrote: “He loved
what ought to be loved, and hated what ought to be hated, and
never had miscreant with him.” Compare _Ps. 101:5, 6—_“Him that
hath a high look and a proud heart will I not suffer. Mine eyes
shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with
me.” Even Horace Bushnell spoke of the “wrath-principle” in God.
_1 K. 11:9—_“And Jehovah was angry with Solomon” because of his
polygamy. Jesus’ anger was no less noble than his love. The love
of the right involved hatred of the wrong. Those may hate who hate
evil for its hatefulness and for the sake of God. Hate sin in
yourself first, and then you may hate it in itself and in the
world. Be angry only in Christ and with the wrath of God. W. C.
Wilkinson, Epic of Paul, 264—“But we must purge ourselves of
self-regard, Or we are sinful in abhorring sin.” Instance Judge
Harris’s pity, as he sentenced the murderer; see A. H. Strong,
Philosophy and Religion, 192, 193.
Horace’s “Ira furor brevis est”—“Anger is a temporary madness”—is
true only of selfish and sinful anger. Hence the man who is angry
is popularly called “mad.” But anger, though apt to become sinful,
is not necessarily so. Just anger is neither madness, nor is it
brief. Instance the judicial anger of the church of Corinth in
inflicting excommunication: _2 Cor. 7:11—_“what indignation, yea
what fear, yea what longing, yea what zeal, yea what avenging!”
The only revenge permissible to the Christian church is that in
which it pursues and exterminates sin. To be incapable of moral
indignation against wrong is to lack real love for the right. Dr.
Arnold of Rugby was never sure of a boy who only loved good; till
the boy also began to hate evil, Dr. Arnold did not feel that he
was safe. Herbert Spencer said that good nature with Americans
became a crime. Lecky, Democracy and Liberty: “There is one thing
worse than corruption, and that is acquiescence in corruption.”
Colestock, Changing Viewpoint, 139—“Xenophon intends to say a very
commendable thing of Cyrus the Younger, when he writes of him that
no one had done more good to his friends or more harm to his
enemies.” Luther said to a monkish antagonist: “I will break in
pieces your heart of brass and pulverize your iron brains.” Shedd,
Dogmatic Theology, 1:175-178—“Human character is worthless in
proportion as abhorrence of sin is lacking in it. It is related of
Charles II that ‘he felt no gratitude for benefits, and no
resentment for wrongs; he did not love anyone, and he did not hate
anyone.’ He was indifferent toward right and wrong, and the only
feeling he had was contempt.” But see the death-bed scene of the
“merry monarch,” as portrayed in Bp. Burnet, Evelyn’s Memoirs, or
the Life of Bp. Ken. Truly “The end of mirth is heaviness”_ (Prov.
14:13)_.
Stout, Manual of Psychology, 22—“Charles Lamb tells us that his
friend George Dyer could never be brought to say anything in
condemnation of the most atrocious crimes, except that the
criminal must have been very eccentric.” Professor Seeley: “No
heart is pure that is not passionate.” D. W. Simon, Redemption of
Man, 249, 250, says that God’s resentment “is a resentment of an
essentially altruistic character.” If this means that it is
perfectly consistent with love for the sinner, we can accept the
statement; if it means that love is the only source of the
resentment, we regard the statement as a misinterpretation of
God’s justice, which is but the manifestation of his holiness and
is not a mere expression of his love. See a similar statement of
Lidgett, Spiritual Principle of the Atonement, 251—“Because God is
love, his love coëxists with his wrath against sinners, is the
very life of that wrath, and is so persistent that it uses wrath
as its instrument, while at the same time it seeks and supplies a
propitiation.” This statement ignores the fact that punishment is
never in Scripture regarded as an expression of God’s love, but
always of God’s holiness. When we say that we love God, let us
make sure that it is the true God, the God of holiness, that we
love, for only this love will make us like him.
The moral indignation of a whole universe of holy beings against
moral evil, added to the agonizing self-condemnations of awakened
conscience in all the unholy, is only a faint and small reflection
of the awful revulsion of God’s infinite justice from the impurity
and selfishness of his creatures, and of the intense, organic,
necessary, and eternal reaction of his moral being in
self-vindication and the punishment of sin; see _Jer. 44:4—_“Oh,
do not this abominable thing that I hate!” _Num. 32:23—_“be sure
your sin will find you out”; _Heb. 10:30, 31—_“For we know him
that said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense. And
again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to
fall into the hands of the living God.” On justice as an attribute
of a moral governor, see N. W. Taylor, Moral Government,
2:253-293; Owen, Dissertation on Divine Justice, in Works,
10:483-624.
VII. Rank and Relations of the several Attributes.
The attributes have relations to each other. Like intellect, affection and
will in man, no one of them is to be conceived of as exercised separately
from the rest. Each of the attributes is qualified by all the others.
God’s love is immutable, wise, holy. Infinity belongs to God’s knowledge,
power, justice. Yet this is not to say that one attribute is of as high
rank as another. The moral attributes of truth, love, holiness, are worthy
of higher reverence from men, and they are more jealously guarded by God,
than the natural attributes of omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence.
And yet even among the moral attributes one stands as supreme. Of this and
of its supremacy we now proceed to speak.
Water is not water unless composed of oxygen and hydrogen. Oxygen
cannot be resolved into hydrogen, nor hydrogen into oxygen. Oxygen
has its own character, though only in combination with hydrogen
does it appear in water. Will in man never acts without intellect
and sensibility, yet will, more than intellect or sensibility, is
the manifestation of the man. So when God acts, he manifests not
one attribute alone, but his total moral excellence. Yet holiness,
as an attribute of God, has rights peculiar to itself; it
determines the attitude of the affections; it more than any other
faculty constitutes God’s moral being.
Clarke, Christian Theology, 83,92—“God would not be holy if he
were not love, and could not be love if he were not holy. Love is
an element in holiness. If this were lacking, there would be no
perfect character as principle of his own action or as standard
for us. On the other hand only the perfect being can be love. God
must be free from all taint of selfishness in order to be love.
Holiness requires God to act as love, for holiness is God’s
self-consistency. Love is the desire to impart holiness. Holiness
makes God’s character the standard for his creatures; but love,
desiring to impart the best good, does the same. All work of love
is work of holiness, and all work of holiness is work of love.
Conflict of attributes is impossible, because holiness always
includes love, and love always expresses holiness. They never need
reconciliation with each other.”
The general correctness of the foregoing statement is impaired by
the vagueness of its conception of holiness. The Scriptures do not
regard holiness as including love, or make all the acts of
holiness to be acts of love. Self-affirmation does not include
self-impartation, and sin necessitates an exercise of holiness
which is not also an exercise of love. But for the Cross, and
God’s suffering for sin of which the Cross is the expression,
there would be conflict between holiness and love. The wisdom of
God is most shown, not in reconciling man and God, but in
reconciling the holy God with the loving God.
1. Holiness the fundamental attribute in God.
That holiness is the fundamental attribute in God, is evident:
(_a_) From Scripture,—in which God’s holiness is not only most constantly
and powerfully impressed upon the attention of man, but is declared to be
the chief subject of rejoicing and adoration in heaven.
It is God’s attribute of holiness that first and most prominently
presents itself to the mind of the sinner, and conscience only
follows the method of Scripture: _1 Pet. 1:16—_“Ye shall be holy;
for I am holy”; _Heb. 12:14—_“the sanctification without which no
man shall see the lord”_;_ _cf._ _Luke 5:8—_“Depart from me; for I
am a sinful man, O Lord.” Yet this constant insistence upon
holiness cannot be due simply to man’s present state of sin, for
in heaven, where there is no sin, there is the same reiteration:
_Is. 6:3—_“Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts”; _Rev.
4:8—_“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty.” Of no other
attribute is it said that God’s throne rests upon it: _Ps.
97:2—_“Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his
throne”; _99:4, 5, 9—_“The king’s strength also loveth justice....
Exalt ye Jehovah our God.... holy is he.” We would substitute the
word holiness for the word love in the statement of Newman Smyth,
Christian Ethics, 45—“We assume that love is lord in the divine
will, not that the will of God is sovereign over his love. God’s
omnipotence, as Dorner would say, exists for his love.”
(_b_) From our own moral constitution,—in which conscience asserts its
supremacy over every other impulse and affection of our nature. As we may
be kind, but must be righteous, so God, in whose image we are made, may be
merciful, but must be holy.
See Bishop Butler’s Sermons upon Human Nature, Bohn’s ed.,
385-414, showing “the supremacy of conscience in the moral
constitution of man.” We must be just, before we are generous. So
with God, justice must be done always; mercy is optional with him.
He was not under obligation to provide a redemption for sinners:
_2 Pet. 2:4—_“God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast
them down to hell.” Salvation is a matter of grace, not of debt.
Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 277-298—“The quality of justice is
necessary exaction; but ‘the quality of mercy is not
(con)strained’ ” [_cf._ Denham: “His mirth is forced and
strained”]. God can apply the salvation, after he has wrought it
out, to whomsoever he will: _Rom. 9:18—_“he hath mercy on whom he
will.” Young, Night-Thoughts, 4:233—“A God all mercy is a God
unjust.” Emerson: “Your goodness must have some edge to it; else
it is none.” Martineau, Study, 2:100—“No one can be just without
subordinating Pity to the sense of Right.”
We may learn of God’s holiness _a priori_. Even the heathen could
say “Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum,” or “pereat mundus.” But, for our
knowledge of God’s mercy, we are dependent upon special
revelation. Mercy, like omnipotence, may exist in God without
being exercised. Mercy is not grace but debt, if God owes the
exercise of it either to the sinner or to himself; _versus_ G. B.
Stevens, in New Eng., 1888:421-443. “But justice is an attribute
which not only _exists_ of necessity, but must be _exercised_ of
necessity; because not to exercise it would be injustice”; see
Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:218, 219, 389, 390; 2:402, and Sermons to
Nat. Man, 366. If it be said that, by parity of reasoning, for God
not to exercise mercy is to show himself unmerciful,—we reply that
this is not true so long as higher interests require that exercise
to be withheld. I am not unmerciful when I refuse to give the poor
the money needed to pay an honest debt; nor is the Governor
unmerciful when he refuses to pardon the condemned and unrepentant
criminal. Mercy has its conditions, as we proceed to show, and it
does not cease to _be_ when these conditions do not permit it to
_be exercised_. Not so with justice: justice must always be
exercised; when it ceases to _be exercised_, it also ceases to
_be_.
The story of the prodigal shows a love that ever reaches out after
the son in the far country, but which is ever conditioned by the
father’s holiness and restrained from acting until the son has
voluntarily forsaken his riotous living. A just father may banish
a corrupt son from the household, yet may love him so tenderly
that his banishment causes exquisite pain. E. G. Robinson: “God,
Christ and the Holy Spirit have a conscience, that is, they
distinguish between right and wrong.” E. H. Johnson, Syst.
Theology, 85, 86—“Holiness is primary as respects benevolence; for
(_a_) Holiness is itself moral excellence, while the moral
excellence of benevolence can be explained. (_b_) Holiness is an
attribute of being, while benevolence is an attribute of action;
but action presupposes and is controlled by being. (_c_)
Benevolence must take counsel of holiness, since for a being to
desire aught contrary to holiness would be to wish him harm, while
that which holiness leads God to seek, benevolence finds best for
the creature. (_d_) The Mosaic dispensation elaborately
symbolized, and the Christian dispensation makes provision to
meet, the requirements of holiness as supreme; _James
3:17_—‘_First pure, then_ [by consequence] _peaceable_.’ ”
We are “_to do justly_,” as well as “to love kindness, and to walk
humbly with” our God (_Micah 6:8_). Dr. Samuel Johnson: “It is
surprising to find how much more kindness than justice society
contains.” There is a sinful mercy. A School Commissioner finds it
terrible work to listen to the pleas of incompetent teachers
begging that they may not be dismissed, and he can nerve himself
for it only by remembering the children whose education may be
affected by his refusal to do justice. Love and pity are not the
whole of Christian duty, nor are they the ruling attributes of
God.
(_c_) From the actual dealings of God,—in which holiness conditions and
limits the exercise of other attributes. Thus, for example, in Christ’s
redeeming work, though love makes the atonement, it is violated holiness
that requires it; and in the eternal punishment of the wicked, the demand
of holiness for self-vindication overbears the pleading of love for the
sufferers.
Love cannot be the fundamental attribute of God, because love
always requires a norm or standard, and this norm or standard is
found only in holiness; _Phil. 1:9—_“And this I pray, that your
love may abound yet more in knowledge and all discernment”; see A.
H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 388-405. That which conditions all
is highest of all. Holiness shows itself higher than love, in that
it conditions love. Hence God’s mercy does not consist in
outraging his own law of holiness, but in enduring the penal
affliction by which that law of holiness is satisfied. Conscience
in man is but the reflex of holiness in God. Conscience demands
either retribution or atonement. This demand Christ meets by his
substituted suffering. His sacrifice assuages the thirst of
conscience in man, as well as the demand of holiness in God: _John
6:55—_“For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.”
See Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 280, 291, 292; Dogmatic
Theology, 1:377, 378—“The sovereignty and freedom of God in
respect to justice relates not to the _abolition_, nor to the
_relaxation_, but to the _substitution_, of punishment. It does
not consist in any power to violate or waive legal claims. The
exercise of the other attributes of God is regulated and
conditioned by that of justice.... Where then is the mercy of God,
in case justice is strictly satisfied by a vicarious person? There
is mercy in _permitting_ another person to do for the sinner what
the sinner is bound to do for himself; and greater mercy in
_providing_ that person; and still greater mercy in _becoming_
that person.”
Enthusiasm, like fire, must not only burn, but must be controlled.
Man invented chimneys to keep in the heat but to let out the
smoke. We need the walls of discretion and self-control to guide
the flaming of our love. The holiness of God is the regulating
principle of his nature. The ocean of his mercy is bounded by the
shores of his justice. Even if holiness be God’s self-love, in the
sense of God’s self-respect or self-preservation, still this
self-love must condition love to creatures. Only as God maintains
himself in his holiness, can he have anything of worth to give;
love indeed is nothing but the self-communication of holiness. And
if we say, with J. M. Whiton, that self-affirmation in a universe
in which God is immanent is itself a form of self-impartation,
still this form of self-impartation must condition and limit that
other form of self-impartation which we call love to creatures.
See Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:137-155, 346-353;
Patton, art. on Retribution and the Divine Goodness, in Princeton
Rev., Jan. 1878:8-16; Owen, Dissertation on the Divine Justice, in
Works, 10: 483-624.
(_d_) From God’s eternal purpose of salvation,—in which justice and mercy
are reconciled only through the foreseen and predetermined sacrifice of
Christ. The declaration that Christ is “the Lamb ... slain from the
foundation of the world” implies the existence of a principle in the
divine nature which requires satisfaction, before God can enter upon the
work of redemption. That principle can be none other than holiness.
Since both mercy and justice are exercised toward sinners of the
human race, the otherwise inevitable antagonism between them is
removed only by the atoning death of the God-man. Their opposing
claims do not impair the divine blessedness, because the
reconciliation exists in the eternal counsels of God. This is
intimated in _Rev. 13:8—_“the Lamb that hath been slain from the
foundation of the world.” This same reconciliation is alluded to
in _Ps. 85:10—_“Mercy and truth are met together; Righteousness
and peace have kissed each other”; and in _Rom. 3:26—_“that he
might himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in
Jesus.” The atonement, then, if man was to be saved, was
necessary, not primarily on man’s account, but on God’s account.
Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 279—The sacrifice of Christ was an
“atonement _ab intra_, a self-oblation on the part of Deity
himself, by which to satisfy those immanent and eternal
imperatives of the divine nature which without it must find their
satisfaction in the punishment of the transgressor, or else be
outraged.” Thus God’s word of redemption, as well as his word of
creation, is forever “settled in heaven”_ (Ps. 119:89)_. Its
execution on the cross was “according to the pattern” on high. The
Mosaic sacrifice prefigured the sacrifice of Christ; but the
sacrifice of Christ was but the temporal disclosure of an eternal
fact in the nature of God. See Kreibig, Versöhnung, 155, 156.
God requires satisfaction because he is holiness, but he makes
satisfaction because he is love. The Judge himself, with all his
hatred of transgression, still loves the transgressor, and comes
down from the bench to take the criminal’s place and bear his
penalty. But this is an eternal provision and an eternal
sacrifice. _Heb. 9:14—_“the blood of Christ, who through the
eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God.”
Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, 215, 216—“Christ’s sacrifice was
offered through the Spirit. It was not wrung from a reluctant soul
through obedience to outward law; it came from the inner heart,
from the impulse of undying love. It was a completed offering
before Calvary began; it was seen by the Father before it was seen
by the world. It was finished in the Spirit, ere it began in the
flesh, finished in the hour when Christ exclaimed: ‘not as I will,
but as thou wilt’_ (Mat. 26:39)._”
Lang, Homer, 506—“Apollo is the bringer of pestilence and the
averter of pestilence, in accordance with the well-known rule that
the two opposite attributes should be combined in the same deity.”
Lord Bacon, Confession of Faith: “Neither angel, man nor world,
could stand or can stand one moment in God’s sight without
beholding the same in the face of a Mediator; and therefore before
him, with whom all things are present, the Lamb of God was slain
before all worlds; without which eternal counsel of his, it was
impossible for him to have descended to any work of creation.”
Orr, Christian View of God and the World, 819—“Creation is built
on redemption lines”—which is to say that incarnation and
atonement were included in God’s original design of the world.
2. The holiness of God the ground of moral obligation.
A. Erroneous Views. The ground of moral obligation is not
(_a_) In power,—whether of civil law (Hobbes, Gassendi), or of divine will
(Occam, Descartes). We are not bound to obey either of these, except upon
the ground that they are right. This theory assumes that nothing is good
or right in itself, and that morality is mere prudence.
_Civil law_: See Hobbes, Leviathan, part i, chap. 6 and 13; part
ii, chap. 30; Gassendi, Opera, 6:120. Upon this view, might makes
right; the laws of Nero are always binding; a man may break his
promise when civil law permits; there is no obligation to obey a
father, a civil governor, or God himself, when once it is certain
that the disobedience will be hidden, or when the offender is
willing to incur the punishment. Martineau, Seat of Authority,
67—“Mere magnitude of scale carries no moral quality; nor could a
whole population of devils by unanimous ballot confer
righteousness upon their will, or make it binding upon a single
Abdiel.” Robert Browning, Christmas Eve, xvii—“Justice, good, and
truth were still Divine if, by some demon’s will, Hatred and wrong
had been proclaimed Law through the world, and right misnamed.”
_Divine will_: See Occam, lib. 2, quæs. 19 (quoted in Porter,
Moral Science, 125); Descartes (referred to in Hickok, Moral
Science, 27, 28); Martineau, Types, 148—“Descartes held that the
will of God is not the revealer but the inventor of moral
distinctions. God could have made Euclid a farrago of lies, and
Satan a model of moral perfection.” Upon this view, right and
wrong are variable quantities. Duns Scotus held that God’s will
makes not only truth but right. God can make lying to be virtuous
and purity to be wrong. If Satan were God, we should be bound to
obey him. God is essentially indifferent to right and wrong, good
and evil. We reply that behind the divine will is the divine
nature, and that in the moral perfection of that nature lies the
only ground of moral obligation. God pours forth his love and
exerts his power in accordance with some determining principle in
his own nature. That principle is not happiness. Finney, Syst.
Theology, 936, 937—“Could God’s command make it obligatory upon us
to will evil to him? If not, then his will is not the ground of
moral obligation. The thing that is most valuable, namely, the
highest good of God and of the universe must be both the end and
the ground. It is the divine reason and not the divine will that
perceives and affirms the law of conduct. The divine will
publishes, but does not originate, the rule. God’s will could not
make vice to be virtuous.”
As between power or utility on the one hand, and right on the
other hand, we must regard right as the more fundamental. We do
not, however, as will be seen further on, place the ground of
moral obligation even in right, considered as an abstract
principle; but place it rather in the moral excellence of him who
is the personal Right and therefore the source of right. Character
obliges, and the master often bows in his heart to the servant,
when this latter is the nobler man.
(_b_) Nor in utility,—whether our own happiness or advantage present or
eternal (Paley), for supreme regard for our own interest is not virtuous;
or the greatest happiness or advantage to being in general (Edwards), for
we judge conduct to be useful because it is right, not right because it is
useful. This theory would compel us to believe that in eternity past God
was holy only because of the good he got from it,—that is, there was no
such thing as holiness in itself, and no such thing as moral character in
God.
_Our own happiness_: Paley, Mor. and Pol. Philos., book i, chap.
vii—“Virtue is the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will
of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness.” This unites
(_a_) and (_b_). John Stuart Mill and Dr. N. W. Taylor held that
our own happiness is the supreme end. These writers indeed regard
the highest happiness as attained only by living for others
(Mill’s altruism), but they can assign no reason why one who knows
no other happiness than the pleasures of sense should not adopt
the maxim of Epicurus, who, according to Lucretius, taught that
“ducit quemque voluptas.” This theory renders virtue impossible;
for a virtue which is mere regard to our own interest is not
virtue but prudence. “We have a sense of right and wrong
independently of all considerations of happiness or its loss.”
James Mill held that the utility is not the criterion of the
morality but itself constitutes the morality. G. B. Foster well
replies that virtue is not mere egoistic sagacity, and the moral
act is not simply a clever business enterprise. All languages
distinguish between virtue and prudence. To say that the virtues
are great utilities is to confound the effect with the cause.
Carlyle says that a man can do without happiness. Browning, Red
Cotton Nightcap Country: “Thick heads ought to recognize The
devil, that old stager, at his trick Of general utility, who leads
Downward perhaps, but fiddles all the way.” This is the morality
of Mother Goose: “He put in his thumb, And pulled out a plum, And
said, ‘What a good boy am I!’ ”
E. G. Robinson, Principles and Practice of Morality, 160—“Utility
has nothing ultimate in itself, and therefore can furnish no
ground of obligation. Utility is mere fitness of one thing to
minister to something else.” To say that things are right because
they are useful, is like saying that things are beautiful because
they are pleasing. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, 2:170, 511,
556—“The moment the appetites pass into the self-conscious state,
and become ends instead of impulses, they draw to themselves terms
of censure.... So intellectual conscientiousness, or strict
submission of the mind to evidence, has its inspiration in pure
love of truth, and would not survive an hour if entrusted to the
keeping either of providence or of social affection.... Instincts,
which provide for they know not what, are proof that _want_ is the
original impulse to action, instead of pleasure being the end.” On
the happiness theory, appeals to self-interest on behalf of
religion ought to be effective,—as a matter of fact few are moved
by them.
Dewey, Psychology, 300, 362—“Emotion turned inward eats up itself.
Live on feelings rather than on the things to which feelings
belong, and you defeat your own end, exhaust your power of
feeling, commit emotional suicide. Hence arise cynicism, the _nil
admirari_ spirit, restless searching for the latest sensation. The
only remedy is to get outside of self, to devote self to some
worthy object, not for feeling’s sake but for the sake of the
object.... We do not desire an object because it gives us
pleasure, but it gives us pleasure because it satisfies the
impulse which, in connection with the idea of the object,
constitutes the desire.... Pleasure is the accompaniment of the
activity or development of the _self_.”
Salter, First Steps in Philosophy, 150—“It is right to aim at
happiness. Happiness is an end. Utilitarianism errs in making
happiness the only and the highest end. It exalts a state of
feeling into the supremely desirable thing. Intuitionalism gives
the same place to a state of will. The truth includes both. The
true end is the highest development of being, self and others, the
realization of the divine idea, God in man.” Bowne, Principles of
Ethics, 96—“The standard of appeal is not the actual happiness of
the actual man but the normal happiness of the normal man....
Happiness must have a law. But then also the law must lead to
happiness.... The true ethical aim is to realize the good. But
then the contents of this good have to be determined in accordance
with an inborn ideal of human worth and dignity.... Not all good,
but the true good, not the things which please, but the things
which should please, are to be the aim of action.”
Bixby, Crisis of Morals, 223—“The Utilitarian is really asking
about the wisest method of embodying the ideal. He belongs to that
second stage in which the moral artist considers through what
material and in what form and color he may best realize his
thought. What the ideal is, and why it is the highest, he does not
tell us. Morality begins, not in feeling, but in reason. And
reason is impersonal. It discerns the moral equality of
personalities.” Genung, Epic of the Inner Life, 20—Job speaks out
his character like one of Robert Browning’s heroes. He teaches
that “there is a service of God which is not work for reward: it
is a heart-loyalty, a hunger after God’s presence, which survives
loss and chastisement; which in spite of contradictory seeming
cleaves to what is godlike as the needle seeks the pole; and which
reaches up out of the darkness and hardness of this life into the
light and love beyond.”
_Greatest good of being_: Not only Edwards, but Priestley,
Bentham, Dwight, Finney, Hopkins, Fairchild, hold this view. See
Edwards, Works, 2:261-304—“Virtue is benevolence toward being in
general”; Dwight, Theology, 3:150-162—“Utility the foundation of
Virtue”; Hopkins, Law of Love, 7-28; Fairchild, Moral Philosophy;
Finney, Syst. Theol., 42-135. This theory regards good as a mere
state of the sensibility, instead of consisting in purity of
being. It forgets that in eternity past “love for being in
general” = simply God’s self-love, or God’s regard for his own
happiness. This implies that God is holy only for a purpose; he is
bound to be unholy, if greater good would result; that is,
holiness has no independent existence in his nature. We grant that
a thing is often known to be right by the fact that it is useful;
but this is very different from saying that its usefulness makes
it right. “Utility is only the setting of the diamond, which
_marks_, but does not _make_, its value.” “If utility be a
criterion of rectitude, it is only because it is a revelation of
the divine nature.” See British Quarterly, July, 1877, on Matthew
Arnold and Bishop Butler. Bp. Butler, Nature of Virtue, in Works,
Bohn’s ed., 334—“Benevolence is the true self-love.” Love and
holiness are obligatory in themselves, and not because they
promote the general good. Cicero well said that they who
confounded the _honestum_ with the _utile_ deserved to be banished
from society. See criticism on Porter’s Moral Science, in Lutheran
Quarterly, Apr. 1885:325-331; also F. L. Patton, on Metaphysics of
Oughtness, in Presb. Rev., 1886:127-150.
Encyc. Britannica, 7:690, on Jonathan Edwards—“Being in general,
being without any qualities, is too abstract a thing to be the
primary cause of love. The feeling which Edwards refers to is not
love, but awe or reverence, and moreover necessarily a blind awe.
Properly stated therefore, true virtue, according to Edwards,
would consist in a blind awe of being in general,—only this would
be inconsistent with his definition of virtue as existing in God.
In reality, as he makes virtue merely the second object of love,
his theory becomes identical with that utilitarian theory with
which the names of Hume, Bentham and Mill are associated.” Hodge,
Essays, 275—“If obligation is due primarily to being in general,
then there is no more virtue in loving God—willing his good—than
there is in loving Satan. But love to Christ differs in its nature
from benevolence toward the devil.” Plainly virtue consists, not
in love for mere being, but in love for good being, or in other
words, in love for the holy God. Not the greatest good of being,
but the holiness of God, is the ground of moral obligation.
Dr. E. A. Park interprets the Edwardian theory as holding that
virtue is love to all beings according to their value, love of the
greater therefore more than the less, “love to particular beings
in a proportion compounded of the degree of being and the degree
of virtue or benevolence to being which they have.” Love is
choice. Happiness, says Park, is not the sole good, much less the
happiness of creatures. The _greatest_ good is holiness, though
the _last_ good aimed at is happiness. Holiness is disinterested
love—free choice of the general above the private good. But we
reply that this gives us no reason or standard for virtue. It does
not tell us what is good nor why we should choose it. Martineau,
Types, 2:70, 77, 471, 484—“Why should I promote the general
well-being? Why should I sacrifice myself for others? Only because
this is godlike. It Would never have been prudent to do right, had
it not been something infinitely more.... It is not fitness that
makes an act moral, but it is its morality that makes it fit.”
Herbert Spencer must be classed as a utilitarian. He says that
justice requires that “every man be free to do as he wills
provided he infringes not the equal freedom of every other man.”
But, since this would permit injury to another by one willing to
submit to injury in return, Mr. Spencer limits the freedom to
“such actions as subserve life.” This is practically equivalent to
saying that the greatest sum of happiness is the ultimate end. On
Jonathan Edwards, see Robert Hall, Works, 1:43 sq.; Alexander,
Moral Science, 194-198; Bib. Repertory (Princeton Review), 25:22;
Bib. Sacra, 9:176, 197; 10:403, 705.
(_c_) Nor in the nature of things (Price),—whether by this we mean their
fitness (Clarke), truth (Wollaston), order (Jouffroy), relations
(Wayland), worthiness (Hickok), sympathy (Adam Smith), or abstract right
(Haven and Alexander); for this nature of things is not ultimate, but has
its ground in the nature of God. We are bound to worship the highest; if
anything exists beyond and above God, we are bound to worship that,—that
indeed is God.
See Wayland, Moral Science, 33-48; Hickok, Moral Science, 27-34;
Haven, Moral Philosophy, 27-50; Alexander, Moral Science, 159-198.
In opposition to all the forms of this theory, we urge that
nothing exists independently of or above God. “If the ground of
morals exist independently of God, either it has ultimately no
authority, or it usurps the throne of the Almighty. Any rational
being who kept the law would be perfect without God, and the moral
centre of all intelligences would be outside of God” (Talbot). God
is not a Jupiter controlled by Fate. He is subject to no law but
the law of his own nature. _Noblesse oblige_,—character
rules,—purity is the highest. And therefore to holiness all
creatures, voluntarily or involuntarily, are constrained to bow.
Hopkins, Law of Love, 77—“Right and wrong have nothing to do with
things, but only with actions; nothing to do with any nature of
things existing necessarily, but only with the nature of persons.”
Another has said: “The idea of right cannot be original, since
right means conformity to some standard or rule.” This standard or
rule is not an abstraction, but an existing being—the infinitely
perfect God.
Faber: “For right is right, since God is God; And right the day
must win; To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin.”
Tennyson: “And because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom
in the scorn of consequence.” Right is right, and I should will
the right, not because God _wills_ it, but because God _is_ it. E.
G. Robinson, Principles and Practice of Morality, 178-180—“Utility
and relations simply reveal the constitution of things and so
represent God. Moral law was not made for purposes of utility, nor
do relations constitute the reason for obligation. They only show
what the nature of God is who made the universe and revealed
himself in it. In his nature is found the _reason_ for morality.”
S. S. Times, Oct. 17, 1891—“Only that is level which conforms to
the curvature of the earth’s surface. A straight line tangent to
the earth’s curve would at its ends be much further from the
earth’s centre than at its middle. Now equity means levelness. The
standard of equity is not an impersonal thing, a ’nature of
things’ outside of God. Equity or righteousness is no more to be
conceived independently of the divine centre of the moral world
than is levelness comprehensible apart from the earth’s centre.”
Since God finds the rule and limitation of his action solely in
his own being, and his love is conditioned by his holiness, we
must differ from such views as that of Moxom: “Whether we define
God’s nature as perfect holiness or perfect love is immaterial,
since his nature is manifested only through his action, that is,
through his relation to other beings. Most of our reasoning on the
divine standard of righteousness, or the ultimate ground of moral
obligation, is reasoning in a circle, since we must always go back
to God for the principle of his action; which principle we can
know only by means of his action. God, the perfectly righteous
Being, is the ideal standard of human righteousness. Righteousness
in man therefore is conformity to the nature of God. God, in
agreement with his perfect nature, always wills the perfectly good
toward man. His righteousness is an expression of his love; his
love is a manifestation of his righteousness.”
So Newman Smyth: “Righteousness is the eternal genuineness of the
divine love. It is not therefore an independent excellence, to be
contrasted with, or even put in opposition to, benevolence; it is
an essential part of love.” In reply to which we urge as before
that that which is the object of love, that which limits and
conditions love, that which furnishes the norm and reason for
love, cannot itself be love, nor hold merely equal rank with love.
A double standard is as irrational in ethics as in commerce, and
it leads in ethics to the same debasement of the higher values,
and the same unsettling of relations, as has resulted in our
currency from the attempt to make silver regulate gold at the same
time that gold regulates silver.
B. The Scriptural View.—According to the Scriptures, the ground of moral
obligation is the holiness of God, or the moral perfection of the divine
nature, conformity to which is the law of our moral being (Robinson,
Chalmers, Calderwood, Gregory, Wuttke). We show this:
(_a_) From the commands: “Ye shall be holy,” where the ground of
obligation assigned is simply and only: “for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16); and
“Ye therefore shall be perfect,” where the standard laid down is: “as your
heavenly Father is perfect” (Mat. 5:48). Here we have an ultimate reason
and ground for being and doing right, namely, that God is right, or, in
other words, that holiness is his nature.
(_b_) From the nature of the love in which the whole law is summed up
(Mat. 22:37—“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God”; Rom. 13:10—“love therefore
is the fulfilment of the law”). This love is not regard for abstract right
or for the happiness of being, much less for one’s own interest, but it is
regard for God as the fountain and standard of moral excellence, or in
other words, love for God as holy. Hence this love is the principle and
source of holiness in man.
(_c_) From the example of Christ, whose life was essentially an exhibition
of supreme regard for God, and of supreme devotion to his holy will. As
Christ saw nothing good but what was in God (Mark 10:18—“none is good save
one, even God”), and did only what he saw the Father do (John 5:19; see
also 30—“I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me”), so
for us, to be like God is the sum of all duty, and God’s infinite moral
excellence is the supreme reason why we should be like him.
For statements of the correct view of the ground of moral
obligation, see E. G. Robinson, Principles and Practice of
Morality, 138-180; Chalmers, Moral Philosophy, 412-420;
Calderwood, Moral Philosophy; Gregory, Christian Ethics, 112-122;
Wuttke, Christian Ethics, 2:80-107; Talbot, Ethical Prolegomena,
in Bap. Quar., July, 1877:257-274—“The ground of all moral law is
the nature of God, or the ethical nature of God in relation to the
like nature in man, or the imperativeness of the divine nature.”
Plato: “The divine will is the fountain of all efficiency; the
divine reason is the fountain, of all law; the divine nature is
the fountain of all virtue.” If it be said that God is love as
well as holiness, we ask: Love to what? And the only answer is:
Love to the right, or to holiness. To ask why right is a good, is
no more sensible than to ask why happiness is a good. There must
be something ultimate. Schiller said there are people who want to
know why ten is not twelve. We cannot study character apart from
conduct, nor conduct apart from character. But this does not
prevent us from recognizing that character is the fundamental
thing and that conduct is only the expression of it.
The moral perfection of the divine nature includes truth and love,
but since it is holiness that conditions the exercise of every
other attribute, we must conclude that holiness is the ground of
moral obligation. Infinity also unites with holiness to make it
the perfect ground, but since the determining element is holiness,
we call this, and not infinity, the ground of obligation. J. H.
Harris, Baccalaureate Sermon, Bucknell University, 1890—“As
holiness is the fundamental attribute of God, so holiness is the
supreme good of man. Aristotle perceived this when he declared the
chief good of man to be energizing according to virtue.
Christianity supplies the Holy Spirit and makes this energizing
possible.” Holiness is the goal of man’s spiritual career; see _1
Thess. 3:13—_“to the end he may establish your hearts unblamable
in holiness before our God and Father.”
Arthur H. Hallam, in John Brown’s Rab and his Friends,
272—“Holiness and happiness are two notions of one thing....
Unless therefore the heart of a created being is at one with the
heart of God, it cannot but be miserable.” It is more true to say
that holiness and happiness are, as cause and effect, inseparably
bound together. Martineau, Types, 1:xvi; 2:70-77—“Two classes of
facts it is indispensable for us to know: what are the springs of
voluntary conduct, and what are its effects”; Study, 1:26—“Ethics
must either perfect themselves in Religion, or disintegrate
themselves into Hedonism.” William Law remarks: “Ethics are not
external but internal. The essence of a moral act does not lie in
its result, but in the motive from which it springs. And that
again is good or bad, according as it conforms to the character of
God.” For further discussion of the subject see our chapter on The
Law of God. See also Thornwell, Theology, 1:363-373; Hinton, Art
of Thinking, 47-62; Goldwin Smith, in Contemporary Review, March,
1882, and Jan. 1884; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 195-231,
esp. 223.
Chapter II. Doctrine Of The Trinity.
In the nature of the one God there are three eternal distinctions which
are represented to us under the figure of persons, and these three are
equal. This tripersonality of the Godhead is exclusively a truth of
revelation. It is clearly, though not formally, made known in the New
Testament, and intimations of it may be found in the Old.
The doctrine of the Trinity may be expressed in the six following
statements: 1. In Scripture there are three who are recognized as God. 2.
These three are so described in Scripture that we are compelled to
conceive of them as distinct persons. 3. This tripersonality of the divine
nature is not merely economic and temporal, but is immanent and eternal.
4. This tripersonality is not tritheism; for while there are three
persons, there is but one essence. 5. The three persons, Father, Son and
Holy Spirit, are equal. 6. Inscrutable yet not self-contradictory, this
doctrine furnishes the key to all other doctrines.—These statements we
proceed now to prove and to elucidate.
Reason shows us the Unity of God; only revelation shows us the
Trinity of God, thus filling out the indefinite outlines of this
Unity and vivifying it. The term “Trinity” is not found in
Scripture, although the conception it expresses is Scriptural. The
invention of the term is ascribed to Tertullian. The Montanists
first defined the personality of the Spirit, and first formulated
the doctrine of the Trinity. The term “Trinity” is not a
metaphysical one. It is only a designation of four facts: (1) the
Father is God; (2) the Son is God; (3) the Spirit is God; (4)
there is but one God.
Park: “The doctrine of the Trinity does not on the one hand assert
that three persons are united in one person, or three beings in
one being, or three Gods in one God (tritheism); nor on the other
hand that God merely manifests himself in three different ways
(modal trinity, or trinity of manifestations); but rather that
there are three eternal distinctions in the substance of God.”
Smyth, preface to Edwards, Observations on the Trinity: “The
church doctrine of the Trinity affirms that there are in the
Godhead three distinct hypostases or subsistences—the Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit—each possessing one and the same divine
nature, though in a different manner. The essential points are (1)
the unity of essence; (2) the reality of immanent or ontological
distinctions.” See Park on Edwards’s View of the Trinity, in Bib.
Sac., April, 1881:333. Princeton Essays, 1:28—“There is one God;
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are this one God; there is such a
distinction between Father, Son and Holy Spirit as to lay a
sufficient ground for the reciprocal use of the personal
pronouns.” Joseph Cook: “(1) The Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost are one God; (2) each has a peculiarity incommunicable to
the others; (3) neither is God without the others; (4) each, with
the others, is God.”
We regard the doctrine of the Trinity as implicitly held by the
apostles and as involved in the New Testament declarations with
regard to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while we concede that the
doctrine had not by the New Testament writers been formulated.
They held it, as it were in solution; only time, reflection, and
the shock of controversy and opposition, caused it to crystalize
into definite and dogmatic form. Chadwick, Old and New
Unitarianism, 59, 60, claims that the Jewish origin of
Christianity shows that the Jewish Messiah could not originally
have been conceived of as divine. If Jesus had claimed this, he
would not have been taken before Pilate,—the Jews would have
dispatched him. The doctrine of the Trinity, says Chadwick, was
not developed until the Council of Nice, 325. E. G. Robinson:
“There was no doctrine of the Trinity in the Patristic period, as
there was no doctrine of the Atonement before Anselm.” The
Outlook, Notes and Queries, March 30, 1901—“The doctrine of the
Trinity cannot be said to have taken final shape before the
appearance of the so-called Athanasian Creed in the 8th or 9th
century. The Nicene Creed, formulated in the 4th century, is
termed by Dr. Schaff, from the orthodox point of view,
‘semi-trinitarian.’ The earliest time known at which Jesus was
deified was, after the New Testament writers, in the letters of
Ignatius, at the beginning of the second century.”
Gore, Incarnation, 179—“The doctrine of the Trinity is not so much
heard, as overheard, in the statements of Scripture.” George P.
Fisher quotes some able and pious friend of his as saying: “What
meets us in the New Testament is the _disjecta membra_ of the
Trinity.” G. B. Foster: “The doctrine of the Trinity is the
Christian attempt to make intelligible the personality of God
without dependence upon the world.” Charles Kingsley said that,
whether the doctrine of the Trinity is in the Bible or no, it
ought to be there, because our spiritual nature cries out for it.
Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:250—“Though the doctrine of the
Trinity is not discoverable by human reason, it is susceptible of
a rational defense, when revealed.” On New England Trinitarianism,
see New World, June, 1896:272-295—art. by Levi L. Paine. He says
that the last phase of it is represented by Phillips Brooks, James
M. Whiton and George A. Gordon. These hold to the essential
divineness of humanity and preëminently of Christ, the unique
representative of mankind, who was, in this sense, a true
incarnation of Deity. See also, L. L. Paine, Evolution of
Trinitarianism, 141, 287.
Neander declared that the Trinity is not a fundamental doctrine of
Christianity. He was speaking however of the speculative,
metaphysical form which the doctrine has assumed in theology. But
he speaks very differently of the devotional and practical form in
which the Scriptures present it, as in the baptismal formula and
in the apostolic benediction. In regard to this he says: “We
recognize therein the essential contents of Christianity summed up
in brief.” Whiton, Gloria Patri, 10, 11, 55, 91, 92—“God
transcendent, the Father, is revealed by God immanent, the Son.
This one nature belongs equally to God, to Christ, and to mankind,
and in this fact is grounded the immutableness of moral
distinctions and the possibility of moral progress.... The
immanent life of the universe is one with the transcendent Power;
the filial stream is one with its paternal Fount. To Christ
supremely belongs the name of Son, which includes all that life
that is begotten of God. In Christ the before unconscious Sonship
of the world awakes to consciousness of the Father. The Father is
the Life transcendent, above all; the Son is Life immanent,
through all; the Holy Spirit is the Life individualized, in all.
In Christ we have collectivism; in the Holy Spirit we have
individualism; as Bunsen says: ‘The chief power in the world is
personality.’ ”
For treatment of the whole doctrine, see Dorner, System of
Doctrine, 1:344-465; Twesten, Dogmatik, and translation in Bib.
Sac., 3:502; Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1:145-199; Thomasius, Christi
Person und Werk, 1:57-135; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:203-229; Shedd,
Dogm. Theol., 1:248-333, and History of Doctrine, 1:246-385;
Farrar, Science and Theology, 138; Schaff, Nicene Doctrine of the
Holy Trinity, in Theol. Eclectic, 4:209. For the Unitarian view,
see Norton, Statement of Reasons, and J. F. Clarke, Truths and
Errors of Orthodoxy.
I. In Scriptures there are Three who are recognized as God.
1. Proofs from the New Testament.
A. The Father is recognized as God.
The Father is recognized as God,—and that in so great a number of passages
(such as John 6:27—“him the Father, even God, hath sealed,” and 1 Pet.
1:2—“foreknowledge of God the Father”) that we need not delay to adduce
extended proof.
B. Jesus Christ is recognized as God.
(_a_) He is expressly called God.
In John 1:1—Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος—the absence of the article shows Θεός to be
the predicate (_cf._ 4:24—πνεῦμα ὁ Θεός). This predicate precedes the verb
by way of emphasis, to indicate progress in the thought = “the Logos was
not only with God, but was God” (see Meyer and Luthardt, Comm. _in loco_).
“Only ὁ λόγος can be the subject, for in the whole Introduction the
question is, not who God is, but who the Logos is” (Godet).
Westcott in Bible Commentary, _in loco_—“The predicate stands
emphatically first. It is necessarily without the article,
inasmuch as it describes the nature of the Word and does not
identify his person. It would be pure Sabellianism to say: ‘The
Word was ὁ Θεός.’ Thus in verse 1 we have set forth the Word in
his absolute eternal being, (_a_) his existence: beyond time;
(_b_) his personal existence: in active communion with God; (_c_)
his nature: God in essence.” Marcus Dods, in Expositor’s Greek
Testament, _in loco_: “The Word is distinguishable from God, yet
Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος—the word was God, of divine nature; not ‘a God,’
which to a Jewish ear would have been abominable, nor yet
identical with all that can be called God, for then the article
would have been inserted (_cf._ 1 John 3:4).”
In John 1:18, μονογενὴς θεός—“the only begotten God”—must be regarded as
the correct reading, and as a plain ascription of absolute Deity to
Christ. He is not simply the only revealer of God, but he is himself God
revealed.
_John 1:18—_“No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten
God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” In
this passage, although Tischendorf (8th ed.) has μονογενὴς ὑιός,
Westcott and Hort (with א*BC*L Pesh. Syr.) read μονογενὴς Θεός and
the Rev. Vers. puts “_the only begotten God_” in the margin,
though it retains “_the only begotten Son_” in the text. Harnack
says the reading μονογενὴς θεός is “established beyond
contradiction”; see Westcott, Bib. Com. on John, pages 32, 33.
Here then we have a new and unmistakable assertion of the deity of
Christ. Meyer says that the apostles actually call Christ God only
in _John 1:1_ and _20:28_, and that Paul never so recognizes him.
But Meyer is able to maintain his position only by calling the
doxologies to Christ, in _2 Tim. 4:18_, _Heb. 13:21_ and _2 Pet.
3:18_, post-apostolic. See Thayer, N. T. Lexicon, on Θεός, and on
μονογενής.
In John 20:28, the address of Thomas Ὁ κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου—“My Lord
and my God”—since it was unrebuked by Christ, is equivalent to an
assertion on his own part of his claim to Deity.
_John 20:28—_“Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my
God.” This address cannot be interpreted as a sudden appeal to God
in surprise and admiration, without charging the apostle with
profanity. Nor can it be considered a mere exhibition of
overwrought enthusiasm, since it was accepted by Christ. Contrast
the conduct of Paul and Barnabas when the heathen at Lystra were
bringing sacrifice to them as Jupiter and Mercury (_Acts
14:11-18_). The words of Thomas, as addressed directly to Christ
and as accepted by Christ, can be regarded only as a just
acknowledgment on the part of Thomas that Christ was his Lord and
his God. Alford, Commentary, _in loco_: “The Socinian view that
these words are merely an exclamation is refuted (1) by the fact
that no such exclamations were in use among the Jews; (2) by the
εἶπεν αὐτῷ; (3) by the impossibility of referring the ὁ κύριός μου
to another than Jesus: see _verse 13_; (4) by the N. T. usage of
expressing the vocative by the nominative with an article; (5) by
the psychological absurdity of such a supposition: that one just
convinced of the presence of him whom he dearly loved should,
instead of addressing him, break out into an irrelevant cry; (6)
by the further absurdity of supposing that, if such were the case,
the Apostle John, who of all the sacred writers most constantly
keeps in mind the object for which he is writing, should have
recorded anything so beside that object; (7) by the intimate
conjunction of πεπίστευκας.” _Cf._ _Mat. 5:34—_“Swear not ... by
the heaven”—swearing by Jehovah is not mentioned, because no Jew
did so swear. This exclamation of Thomas, the greatest doubter
among the twelve, is the natural conclusion of John’s gospel. The
thesis “the Word was God”_ (John 1:1)_ has now become part of the
life and consciousness of the apostles. _Chapter 21_ is only an
Epilogue, or Appendix, written later by John, to correct the error
that he was not to die; see Westcott, Bible Com., _in loco_. The
Deity of Christ is the subject of the apostle who best understood
his Master. Lyman Beecher: “Jesus Christ is the acting Deity of
the universe.”
In Rom. 9:5, the clause ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων Θεὸς εὐλογητός cannot be
translated “blessed be the God over all,” for ὢν is superfluous if the
clause is a doxology; “εὐλογητός precedes the name of God in a doxology,
but follows it, as here, in a description” (Hovey). The clause can
therefore justly be interpreted only as a description of the higher nature
of the Christ who had just been said, τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, or according to his
lower nature, to have had his origin from Israel (see Tholuck, Com. _in
loco_).
Sanday, Com. on _Rom. 9:5_—“The words would naturally refer to
Christ, unless ‘_God_’ is so definitely a proper name that it
would imply a contrast in itself. We have seen that this is not
so.” Hence Sanday translates: “_of whom is the Christ as
concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever_”. See
President T. Dwight, in Jour. Soc. Bib. Exegesis, 1881:22-55; _per
contra_, Ezra Abbot, in the same journal, 1881:1-19, and Denney,
in Expositor’s Gk. Test., _in loco_.
In Titus 2:13, ἐπιφάνειαν τῆς δόξης τοῦ μεγάλου Θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν
Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ we regard (with Ellicott) as “a direct, definite, and even
studied declaration of Christ’s divinity” = “the ... appearing of the
glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (so English Revised
Version). Ἐπιφάνεια is a term applied specially to the Son and never to
the Father, and μεγάλου is uncalled for if used of the Father, but
peculiarly appropriate if used of Christ. Upon the same principles we must
interpret the similar text 2 Pet. 1:1 (see Huther, in Meyer’s Com.: “The
close juxtaposition indicates the author’s certainty of the oneness of God
and Jesus Christ”).
_Titus 2:13—_“looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the
glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ”—so the English
Revised Version. The American Revisers however translate: “the
glory of the great God and Savior”; and Westcott and Hort bracket
the word ἡμῶν. These considerations somewhat lessen the cogency of
this passage as a proof-text, yet upon the whole the balance of
argument seems to us still to incline in favor of Ellicott’s
interpretation as given above.
In Heb. 1:8, πρὸς δὲ τὸν υἱόν; ὁ θρόνος σου, ὁ Θεὸς, εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα is
quoted as an address to Christ, and verse 10 which follows—“Thou, Lord, in
the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth”—by applying to Christ
an Old Testament ascription to Jehovah, shows that ὁ Θεός, in verse 8, is
used in the sense of absolute Godhead.
It is sometimes objected that the ascription of the name God to
Christ proves nothing as to his absolute deity, since angels and
even human judges are called gods, as representing God’s authority
and executing his will. But we reply that, while it is true that
the name is sometimes so applied, it is always with adjuncts and
in connections which leave no doubt of its figurative and
secondary meaning. When, however, the name is applied to Christ,
it is, on the contrary, with adjuncts and in connections which
leave no doubt that it signifies absolute Godhead. See _Ex.
4:16—_“thou shalt be to him as God”; _7:1—_“See, I have made thee
as God to Pharaoh”; _22:28—_“Thou shalt not revile God, [marg.,
_the judges_], nor curse a ruler of thy people”; _Ps. 82:1—_“God
standeth in the congregation of God; he judgeth among the gods”
[among the mighty]; _6—_“I said, Ye are gods, And all of you sons
of the Most High”; _7—_“Nevertheless ye shall die like men, And
fall like one of the princes.” _Cf._ _John 10:34-36—_“If he called
them gods, unto whom the word of God came” (who were God’s
commissioned and appointed representatives), how much more proper
for him who is one with the Father to call himself God.
As in _Ps. 82:7_ those who had been called gods are represented as
dying, so in _Ps. 97:7—_“Worship him, all ye gods”—they are bidden
to fall down before Jehovah. Ann. Par. Bible: “Although the
deities of the heathen have no positive existence, they are often
described in Scripture as if they had, and are represented as
bowing down before the majesty of Jehovah.” This verse is quoted
in _Heb. 1:6—_“let all the angels of God worship him”—_i. e._,
Christ. Here Christ is identified with Jehovah. The quotation is
made from the Septuagint, which has “_angels_” for “_gods_.” “Its
use here is in accordance with the spirit of the Hebrew word,
which includes all that human error might regard as objects of
worship.” Those who are figuratively and rhetorically called
“_gods_” are bidden to fall down in worship before him who is the
true God, Jesus Christ. See Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1:314;
Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity, 10.
In 1 John 5:20—ἐσμεν ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ, ἐν τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ. οὗτος
ἐστιν ὁ ἀληθινὸς Θεός—“it would be a flat repetition, after the Father had
been twice called ὁ ἀληθινός, to say now again: ‘this is ὁ ἀληθενὸς Θεός.’
Our being in God has its basis in Christ his Son, and this also makes it
more natural that οὖτος should be referred to υἱῷ. But ought not ὁ
ἀληθενός then to be without the article (as in John 1:1—Θεός ἦν ὁ λόγος)?
No, for it is John’s purpose in 1 John 5:20 to say, not _what_ Christ is,
but _who_ he is. In declaring _what_ one is, the predicate must have no
article; in declaring _who_ one is, the predicate must have the article.
St. John here says that this Son, on whom our being in the true God rests,
is this true God himself” (see Ebrard, Com. _in loco_).
Other passages might be here adduced, as _Col. 2:9—_“in him
dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”; _Phil
2:6—_“existing in the form of God”; but we prefer to consider
these under other heads as indirectly proving Christ’s divinity.
Still other passages once relied upon as direct statements of the
doctrine must be given up for textual reasons. Such are _Acts
20:28_, where the correct reading is in all probability not
ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ, but ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Κυρίου (so ACDE Tregelles
and Tischendorf; B and א, however, have τοῦ Θεοῦ. The Rev. Vers.
continues to read “_church of God_”; Amer. Revisers, however, read
“church of the Lord”—see Ezra Abbot’s investigation in Bib. Sac.,
1876: 313-352); and _1 Tim. 3:16_, where ὅς is unquestionably to
be substituted for Θεός, though even here ἐφανερώθη intimates
preëxistence.
Rev. George E. Ellis, D. D., before the Unitarian Club, Boston,
November, 1882—“Fifty years of study, thought and reading given
largely to the Bible and to the literature which peculiarly
relates to it, have brought me to this conclusion, that the
book—taken with the especial divine quality and character claimed
for it, and so extensively assigned to it, as inspired and
infallible as a whole, and in all its contents—is an Orthodox
book. It yields what is called the Orthodox creed. The vast
majority of its readers, following its letter, its obvious sense,
its natural meaning, and yielding to the impression which some of
its emphatic texts make upon them, find in it Orthodoxy. Only that
kind of ingenious, special, discriminative, and in candor I must
add, forced treatment, which it receives from us liberals can make
the book teach anything but Orthodoxy. The evangelical sects, so
called, are clearly right in maintaining that their view of
Scripture and of its doctrines draws a deep and wide division of
creed between them and ourselves. In that earnest controversy by
pamphlet warfare between Drs. Channing and Ware on the one side,
and Drs. Worcester and Woods and Professor Stuart on the other—a
controversy which wrought up the people of our community sixty
years ago more than did our recent political campaign—I am fully
convinced that the liberal contestants were worsted. Scripture
exegesis, logic and argument were clearly on the side of the
Orthodox contestants. And this was so, mainly because the liberal
party put themselves on the same plane with the Orthodox in their
way of regarding and dealing with Scripture texts in their bearing
upon the controversy. Liberalism cannot vanquish Orthodoxy, if it
yields to the latter in its own way of regarding and treating the
whole Bible. Martin Luther said that the Papists burned the Bible
because it was not on their side. Now I am not about to attack the
Bible because it is not on my side; but I am about to object as
emphatically as I can against a character and quality assigned to
the Bible, which it does not claim for itself, which cannot be
certified for it: and the origin and growth and intensity of the
fond and superstitious influences resulting in that view we can
trace distinctly to agencies accounting for, but not warranting,
the current belief. Orthodoxy cannot readjust its creeds till it
readjusts its estimate of the Scriptures. The only relief which
one who professes the Orthodox creed can find is either by forcing
his ingenuity into the proof-texts or indulging his liberty
outside of them.”
With this confession of a noted Unitarian it is interesting to
compare the opinion of the so-called Trinitarian, Dr. Lyman
Abbott, who says that the New Testament nowhere calls Christ God,
but everywhere calls him man, as in _1 Tim. 2:5—_“for there is one
God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ
Jesus.” On this passage Prof. L. L. Paine remarks in the New
World, Dec. 1894—“That Paul ever confounded Christ with God
himself, or regarded him as in any way the Supreme Divinity, is a
position invalidated not only by direct statements, but also by
the whole drift of his epistles.”
(_b_) Old Testament descriptions of God are applied to him.
This application to Christ of titles and names exclusively appropriated to
God is inexplicable, if Christ was not regarded as being himself God. The
peculiar awe with which the term “Jehovah” was set apart by a nation of
strenuous monotheists as the sacred and incommunicable name of the one
self-existent and covenant-keeping God forbids the belief that the
Scripture writers could have used it as the designation of a subordinate
and created being.
_Mat. 3:3—_“Make ye ready the way of the Lord”—is a quotation from
_Is. 40:3—_“Prepare ye ... the way of Jehovah.” _John
12:41—_“These things said Isaiah, because he saw his glory; and he
spake of him” [_i. e._, Christ]—refers to _Is. 6:1—_“In the year
that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne.” So in
_Eph. 4:7, 8—_“measure of the gift of Christ ... led captivity
captive”—is an application to Christ of what is said of Jehovah in
_Ps. 68:18_. In _1 Pet. 3:15_, moreover, we read, with all the
great uncials, several of the Fathers, and all the best versions:
“sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord”; here the apostle borrows
his language from _Is. 8:13_, where we read: “_Jehovah of hosts,
him shall ye sanctify_.” When we remember that, with the Jews,
God’s covenant-title was so sacred that for the Kethib (=
“written”) _Jehovah_ there was always substituted the Keri (=
“read”—imperative) _Adonai_, in order to avoid pronunciation of
the great Name, it seems the more remarkable that the Greek
equivalent of “Jehovah” should have been so constantly used of
Christ. _Cf._ _Rom. 10:9—_“confess ... Jesus as Lord”; _1 Cor.
12:3—_“no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit.” We
must remember also the indignation of the Jews at Christ’s
assertion of his equality and oneness with the Father. Compare
Goethe’s, “Wer darf ihn nennen?” with Carlyle’s, “the awful
Unnameable of this Universe.” The Jews, it has been said, have
always vibrated between monotheism and moneytheism. Yet James, the
strongest of Hebrews, in his Epistle uses the word ’Lord’ freely
and alternately of God the Father and of Christ the Son. This
would have been impossible if James had not believed in the
community of essence between the Son and the Father.
It is interesting to note that 1 Maccabees does not once use the
word Θεός or κύριος, or any other direct designation of God unless
it be οὐρανός (_cf._ “swear ... by the heaven”_—Mat. 5:34_). So
the book of Esther contains no mention of the name of God, though
the apocryphal additions to Esther, which are found only in Greek,
contain the name of God in the first verse, and mention it in all
eight times. See Bissell, Apocrypha, in Lange’s Commentary;
Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity, 93; Max Müller on Semitic Monotheism,
in Chips from a German Workshop, 1:337.
(_c_) He possesses the attributes of God.
Among these are life, self-existence, immutability, truth, love, holiness,
eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence. All these attributes are
ascribed to Christ in connections which show that the terms are used in no
secondary sense, nor in any sense predicable of a creature.
_Life_: _John 1:4—_“In him was life”; _14:6—_“I am ... the life.”
_Self-existence_: _John 5:26—_“have life in himself”; _Heb.
7:16—_“power of an endless life.” _Immutability_: _Heb.
13:8—_“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and
forever.” _Truth_: _John 14:6—_“I am ... the truth”; _Rev.
3:7—_“he that is true.” _Love_: _1 John 3:16—_“Hereby know we
love” (τὴν ἀγάπην = the personal Love, as the personal Truth)
“_because he laid down his life for us_.” _Holiness_: _Luke
1:35—_“that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of
God”; _John 6:69—_“thou art the Holy One of God”; _Heb.
7:26—_“holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners.”
_Eternity_: _John 1:1—_“In the beginning was the Word.” Godet says
ἐν ἀρχῇ = not “in eternity,” but “in the beginning of the
creation”; the eternity of the Word being an inference from the
ἦν—the Word _was_, when the world was _created_: _cf._ _Gen.
1:1—_“In the beginning God created.” But Meyer says, ἐν ἀρχῇ here
rises above the historical conception of “_in the beginning_” in
Genesis (which includes the beginning of time itself) to the
absolute conception of anteriority to time; the creation is
something subsequent. He finds a parallel in _Prov. 8:23—ἐν ἀρχῇ
πρὸ τοῦ τὴν γῆν ποιῆσαι_. The interpretation “in the beginning of
the gospel” is entirely unexegetical; so Meyer. So _John
17:5—_“glory which I had with thee before the world was”; _Eph.
1:4—_“chose us in him before the foundation of the world.” Dorner
also says that ἐν ἀρχῇ in _John 1:1_ is not “the beginning of the
world,” but designates the point back of which it is impossible to
go, _i. e._, eternity; the world is first spoken of in _verse 3.
John 8:58—_“Before Abraham was born, I am”; _cf._ _1:15_; _Col.
1:17—_“he is before all things”; _Heb. 1:11_—the heavens “_shall
perish; but thou continuest_”; _Rev. 21:6—_“I am the Alpha and the
Omega, the beginning and the end.”
_Omnipresence_: _Mat. 28:20—_“I am with you always”; _Eph.
1:23—_“the fulness of him that filleth all in all.” _Omniscience_:
_Mat. 9:4—_“Jesus knowing their thoughts”; _John 2:24, 25—_“knew
all men ... knew what was in man”; _16:30—_“knowest all things”;
_Acts 1:24—_“Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men”—a
prayer offered before the day of Pentecost and showing the
attitude of the disciples toward their Master; _1 Cor. 4:5—_“until
the Lord come, who will both bring to light the hidden things of
darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts”; _Col.
2:3—_“in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge
hidden.” _Omnipotence_: _Mat. 27:18—_“All authority hath been
given unto me in heaven and on earth”; _Rev. 1:8—_“the Lord God,
which is and which was and which is to come, the Almighty.”
Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 1:249-260, holds that Jesus’
preëxistence is simply the concrete form given to an ideal
conception. Jesus traces himself back, as everything else holy and
divine was traced back in the conceptions of his time, to a
heavenly original in which it preëxisted before its earthly
appearance; _e. g._: the tabernacle, in _Heb. 8:5_; Jerusalem, in
_Gal. 4:25_ and _Rev. 21:10_; the kingdom of God in _Mat. 13:24_;
much more the Messiah, in _John 6:62—_“ascending where he was
before”; _8:58—_“Before Abraham was born, I am”; _17:4, 5—_“glory
which I had with thee before the world was” _17:24—_“thou lovedst
me before the foundation of the world.” This view that Jesus
existed before creation only ideally in the divine mind, means
simply that God foreknew him and his coming. The view is refuted
by the multiplied intimations of a personal, in distinction from
an ideal, preëxistence.
Lowrie, Doctrine of St. John, 115—“The words ‘In the beginning’_
(John 1:1)_ suggest that the author is about to write a second
book of Genesis, an account of a new creation.” As creation
presupposes a Creator, the preëxistence of the personal Word is
assigned as the explanation of the being of the universe. The ἦν
indicates absolute existence, which is a loftier idea than that of
mere preëxistence, although it includes this. While John the
Baptist and Abraham are said to have arisen, appeared, come into
being, it is said that the Logos _was_, and that the Logos was
_God_. This implies coëternity with the Father. But, if the view
we are combating were correct, John the Baptist and Abraham
preëxisted, equally with Christ. This is certainly not the meaning
of Jesus in _John 8:58—_“Before Abraham was born, I am”; _cf._
_Col. 1:17—_“he is before all things”—“αὐτός emphasizes the
personality, while ἔστιν declares that the preëxistence is
absolute existence” (Lightfoot); _John 1:15—_“He that cometh after
me is become before me: for he was before me” = not that Jesus was
_born_ earlier than John the Baptist, for he was born six months
later, but that he _existed_ earlier. He stands before John in
rank, because he existed long before John in time; _6:62—_“the Son
of man ascending where he was before”; _16:28—_“I came out from
the Father, and am come into the world.” So _Is. 9:6, 7_, calls
Christ “_Everlasting Father_” = eternity is an attribute of the
Messiah. T. W. Chambers, in Jour. Soc. Bib. Exegesis,
1881:169-171—“Christ is the Everlasting One, ‘whose goings forth
have been from of old, even from the days of eternity’_ (Micah
5:2). _‘Of the increase of his government ... there shall be no
end,’ just because of his existence there has been no beginning.”
(d) The works of God are ascribed to him.
We do not here speak of miracles, which may be wrought by communicated
power, but of such works as the creation of the world, the upholding of
all things, the final raising of the dead, and the judging of all men.
Power to perform these works cannot be delegated, for they are
characteristic of omnipotence.
_Creation_: _John 1:3—_“All things were made through him”; _1 Cor.
8:6—_“one lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things”; _Col.
1:16—_“all things have been created through him, and unto him”;
_Heb, 1:10—_“Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation
of the earth, And the heavens are the works of thy hands”; _3:3,
4—_“he that built all things is God” = Christ, the builder of the
house of Israel, is the God who made all things; _Rev. 3:14—_“the
beginning of the creation of God” (_cf._ Plato: “Mind is the ἀρχή
of motion”). _Upholding_: _Col. 1:17—_“in him all things consist”
(marg. “_hold together_”); _Heb. 1:3—_“upholding all things by the
word of his power.” _Raising the dead and judging the world_:
_John 5:27-29—_“authority to execute judgment ... all that are in
the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth”; _Mat.
25:31, 32—_“sit on the throne of his glory; and before him shall
be gathered all the nations.” If our argument were addressed
wholly to believers, we might also urge Christ’s work in the world
as Revealer of God and Redeemer from sin, as a proof of his deity.
[On the works of Christ, see Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity, 153;
_per contra_, see Examination of Liddon’s Bampton Lectures, 72.]
Statements of Christ’s creative and of his upholding activity are
combined in _John 1:3, 4—Πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ
ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. ὅ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν—_“All things were made
through him; and without him was not anything made. That which
hath been made was life in him” (marg.). Westcott: “It would be
difficult to find a more complete consent of ancient authorities
in favor of any reading than that which supports this
punctuation.” Westcott therefore adopts it. The passage shows that
the universe 1. exists within the bounds of Christ’s being; 2. is
not dead, but living; 3. derives its life from him; see Inge,
Christian Mysticism, 46. Creation requires the divine presence, as
well as the divine agency. God creates through Christ. All things
were made, not ὐπὸ αὐτοῦ—“by him,” but δι᾽ αὐτοῦ—“through him.”
Christian believers “Behind creation’s throbbing screen Catch
movements of the great Unseen.”
Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, iv, lvi—“That which many a
philosopher dimly conjectured, namely, that God did not produce
the world in an absolute, immediate manner, but in some way or
other, mediately, here presents itself to us with the lustre of
revelation, and exalts so much the more the claim of the Son of
God to our deep and reverential homage.” Would that such
scientific men as Tyndall and Huxley might see Christ in nature,
and, doing his will, might learn of the doctrine and be led to the
Father! The humblest Christian who sees Christ’s hand in the
physical universe and in human history knows more of the secret of
the universe than all the mere scientists put together.
_Col 1:17—_“In him all things consist,” or “hold together,” means
nothing less than that Christ is the principle of cohesion in the
universe, making it a cosmos instead of a chaos. Tyndall said that
the attraction of the sun upon the earth was as inconceivable as
if a horse should draw a cart without traces. Sir Isaac Newton:
“Gravitation must be caused by an agent acting constantly
according to certain laws.” Lightfoot: “Gravitation is an
expression of the mind of Christ.” Evolution also is a method of
his operation. The laws of nature are the habits of Christ, and
nature itself is but his steady and constant will. He binds
together man and nature in one organic whole, so that we can speak
of a “universe.” Without him there would be no intellectual bond,
no uniformity of law, no unity of truth. He is the principle of
induction, that enables us to argue from one thing to another. The
medium of interaction between things is also the medium of
intercommunication between minds. It is fitting that he who draws
and holds together the physical and intellectual, should also draw
and hold together the moral universe, drawing all men to himself
(_John 12:32_) and so to God, and reconciling all things in heaven
and earth (_Col. 1:20_). In Christ “the law appears, Drawn out in
living characters,” because he is the ground and source of all
law, both in nature and in humanity. See A. H. Strong, Christ in
Creation, 6-12.
(_e_) He receives honor and worship due only to God.
In addition to the address of Thomas, in John 20:28, which we have already
cited among the proofs that Jesus is expressly called God, and in which
divine honor is paid to him, we may refer to the prayer and worship
offered by the apostolic and post-apostolic church.
_John 5:23—_“that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the
Father”; _14:14—_“If ye shall ask me [so אB and Tisch. 8th ed.]
anything in my name, that will I do”; _Acts 7:59—_“Stephen,
calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”
(_cf._ _Luke 23:46_—Jesus’ words: “Father, into thy hands I
commend my spirit”); _Rom. 10:9—_“confess with thy mouth Jesus as
Lord”; _13—_“whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved” (_cf._ _Gen. 4:26—_“Then began men to call upon the name
of Jehovah”); _1 Cor. 11:24, 25—_“this do in remembrance of me” =
worship of Christ; _Heb. 1:6—_“let all the angels of God worship
him”; _Phil. 2:10, 11—_“in the name of Jesus every knee should bow
... every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”; _Rev.
5:12-14—_“Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to receive the
power....”; _2 Pet. 3:18—_“Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be
the glory”; _2 Tim. 4:18 and Heb. 13:21—_“to whom be the glory for
ever and ever”—these ascriptions of eternal glory to Christ imply
his deity. See also _1 Pet. 3:15—_“Sanctify in your hearts Christ
as Lord,” and _Eph. 5:21—_“subjecting yourselves one to another in
the fear of Christ.” Here is enjoined an attitude of mind towards
Christ which would be idolatrous if Christ were not God. See
Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity, 266, 366.
Foster, Christian Life and Theology, 154—“In the eucharistic
liturgy of the ‘Teaching’ we read: ‘Hosanna to the God of David’;
Ignatius styles him repeatedly God ‘begotten and unbegotten, come
in the flesh’; speaking once of ‘the blood of God’, in evident
allusion to _Acts 20:28_; the epistle to Diognetus takes up the
Pauline words and calls him the ‘architect and world-builder by
whom [God] created the heavens’, and names him God (chap. vii);
Hermas speaks of him as ‘the holy preëxistent Spirit, that created
every creature’, which style of expression is followed by Justin,
who calls him God, as also all the later great writers. In the
second epistle of Clement (130-160, Harnack), we read: ‘Brethren,
it is fitting that you should think of Jesus Christ as of God—as
the Judge of the living and the dead.’ And Ignatius describes him
as ‘begotten and unbegotten, passible and impassible, ... who was
before the eternities with the Father.’ ”
These testimonies only give evidence that the Church Fathers saw
in Scripture divine honor ascribed to Christ. They were but the
precursors of a host of later interpreters. In a lull of the awful
massacre of Armenian Christians at Sassouan, one of the Kurdish
savages was heard to ask: “Who was that ‘Lord Jesus’ that they
were calling to?” In their death agonies, the Christians, like
Stephen of old, called upon the name of the Lord. Robert Browning
quoted, in a letter to a lady in her last illness, the words of
Charles Lamb, when “in a gay fancy with some friends as to how he
and they would feel if the greatest of the dead were to appear
suddenly in flesh and blood once more—on the first suggestion,
‘And if Christ entered this room?’ changed his tone at once and
stuttered out as his manner was when moved: ‘You see—if Shakespere
entered, we should all rise; if He appeared, we must kneel.’ ” On
prayer to Jesus, see Liddon, Bampton Lectures, note F; Bernard, in
Hastings’ Bib. Dict., 4:44; Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten
Kirche, 9, 288.
(_f_) His name is associated with that of God upon a footing of equality.
We do not here allude to 1 John 5:7 (the three heavenly witnesses), for
the latter part of this verse is unquestionably spurious; but to the
formula of baptism, to the apostolic benedictions, and to those passages
in which eternal life is said to be dependent equally upon Christ and upon
God, or in which spiritual gifts are attributed to Christ equally with the
Father.
_The formula of baptism_: _Mat. 28:19—_“baptising them into the
name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”; _cf._
_Acts 2:38—_“be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ”; _Rom. 6:3—_“baptized into Christ Jesus.” “In the common
baptismal formula the Son and the Spirit are coördinated with the
Father, and εἰς ὄνομα has religious significance.” It would be
both absurd and profane to speak of baptizing into the name of the
Father and of Moses.
_The apostolic benedictions_: _1 Cor. 1:3—_“Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”; _2 Cor.
13:14—_“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” “In the
benedictions grace is something divine, and Christ has power to
impart it. But why do we find ‘God,’ instead of simply ‘the
Father,’ as in the baptismal formula? Because it is only the
Father who does not become man or have a historical existence.
Elsewhere he is specially called ‘_God the Father_,’ to
distinguish him from God the Son and God the Holy Spirit (_Gal.
1:3_; _Eph. 3:14_; _6:23_).”
_Other passages_: _John 5:23—_“that all may honor the Son, even as
they honor the Father”; _John 14:1—_“believe in God, believe also
in me”—double imperative (so Westcott, Bible Com., _in loco_);
_17:3—_“this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only
true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ”; _Mat.
11:27—_“no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any
know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son
willeth to reveal him”; _1 Cor. 12:4-6—_“the same Spirit ... the
same Lord [Christ] ... the same God” [the Father] bestow spiritual
gifts, _e. g._, faith: _Rom. 10:17—_“belief cometh of hearing, and
hearing by the word of Christ”; peace: _Col. 3:15—_“let the peace
of Christ rule in your hearts.” _2 Thess. 2:16, 17—_“now our lord
Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father ... comfort your
hearts”—two names with a verb in the singular intimate the oneness
of the Father and the Son (Lillie). _Eph. 5:5—_“kingdom of Christ
and God”; _Col. 3:1—_“Christ ... seated on the right hand of God”
= participation in the sovereignty of the universe,—the Eastern
divan held not only the monarch but his son; _Rev. 20:6—_“priests
of God and of Christ”; _22:3—_“the throne of God and of the Lamb”;
_16—_“the root and the offspring of David” = both the Lord of
David and his son. Hackett: “As the dying Savior said to the
Father, ‘Into thy hands I commend my spirit’_ (Luke 23:46)_, so
the dying Stephen said to the Savior, ‘receive my spirit’_ (Acts
7:59)_.”
(_g_) Equality with God is expressly claimed.
Here we may refer to Jesus’ testimony to himself, already treated of among
the proofs of the supernatural character of the Scripture teaching (see
pages 189, 190). Equality with God is not only claimed for himself by
Jesus, but it is claimed for him by his apostles.
_John 5:18—_“called God his own Father, making himself equal with
God”; _Phil. 2:6—_“who, existing in the form of God, counted not
the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped”—counted
not his equality with God a thing to be forcibly retained. Christ
made and left upon his contemporaries the impression that he
claimed to be God. The New Testament has left, upon the great mass
of those who have read it, the impression that Jesus Christ claims
to be God. If he is not God, he is a deceiver or is self-deceived,
and, in either case, _Christus, si non Deus, non bonus_. See
Nicoll, Life of Jesus Christ, 187.
(_h_) Further proof of Christ’s deity may be found in the application to
him of the phrases: “Son of God,” “Image of God”; in the declarations of
his oneness with God; in the attribution to him of the fulness of the
Godhead.
_Mat. 26:63, 64—_“I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell
us whether thou art the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto
him, Thou hast said”—it is for this testimony that Christ dies.
_Col. 1:15—_“the image of the invisible God”; _Heb. 1:3—_“the
effulgence of his [the Father’s] glory, and the very image of his
substance”; _John 10:30—_“I and the Father are one”; _14:9—_“he
that hath seen me hath seen the Father”; _17:11, 22—_“that they
may be one, even as we are”—ἕ, not εἰς; _unum_, not _unus_; one
substance, not one person. “_Unum_ is antidote to the Arian,
_sumus_ to the Sabellian heresy.” _Col. 2:9—_“in him dwelleth all
the fulness of the Godhead bodily”; _cf._ _1:19—_“for it was the
pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fulness dwell;”
or (marg.) “_for the whole fulness of God was pleased to dwell in
him_.” _John 16:15—_“all things whatsoever the Father hath are
mine”; _17:10—_“all things that are mine are thine, and thine are
mine.”
Meyer on _John 10:30—_“I and the Father are one”—“Here the Arian
understanding of a mere ethical harmony as taught in the words
‘_are one_’ is unsatisfactory, because irrelevant to the exercise
of power. Oneness of essence, though not contained in the words
themselves, is, by the necessities of the argument, presupposed in
them.” Dalman, The Words of Jesus: “Nowhere do we find that Jesus
called himself the Son of God in such a sense as to suggest a
merely religious and ethical relation to God—a relation which
others also possessed and which they were capable of attaining or
were destined to acquire.” We may add that while in the lower
sense there are many “_sons of God_,” there is but one “_only
begotten Son_.”
(_i_) These proofs of Christ’s deity from the New Testament are
corroborated by Christian experience.
Christian experience recognizes Christ as an absolutely perfect Savior,
perfectly revealing the Godhead and worthy of unlimited worship and
adoration; that is, it practically recognizes him as Deity. But Christian
experience also recognizes that through Christ it has introduction and
reconciliation to God as one distinct from Jesus Christ, as one who was
alienated from the soul by its sin, but who is now reconciled through
Jesus’s death. In other words, while recognizing Jesus as God, we are also
compelled to recognize a distinction between the Father and the Son
through whom we come to the Father.
Although this experience cannot be regarded as an independent witness to
Jesus’ claims, since it only tests the truth already made known in the
Bible, still the irresistible impulse of every person whom Christ has
saved to lift his Redeemer to the highest place, and bow before him in the
lowliest worship, is strong evidence that only that interpretation of
Scripture can be true which recognizes Christ’s absolute Godhead. It is
the church’s consciousness of her Lord’s divinity, indeed, and not mere
speculation upon the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that has
compelled the formulation of the Scripture doctrine of the Trinity.
In the letter of Pliny to Trajan, it is said of the early
Christians “quod essent soliti carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere
invicem.” The prayers and hymns of the church show what the church
has believed Scripture to teach. Dwight Moody is said to have
received his first conviction of the truth of the gospel from
hearing the concluding words of a prayer, “For Christ’s sake,
Amen,” when awakened from physical slumber in Dr. Kirk’s church,
Boston. These words, wherever uttered, imply man’s dependence and
Christ’s deity. See New Englander, 1878:432. In _Eph. 4:32_, the
Revised Version substitutes “_in Christ_” for “for Christ’s sake.”
The exact phrase “for Christ’s sake” is not found in the N. T. in
connection with prayer, although the O. T. phrase “for my name’s
sake”_ (Ps. 25:11)_ passes into the N. T. phrase “in the name of
Jesus”_ (Phil. 2:10)_; _cf._ _Ps. 72:15—_“men shall pray for him
continually” = the words of the hymn: “For him shall endless
prayer be made, And endless blessings crown his head.” All this is
proof that the idea of prayer for Christ’s sake is in Scripture,
though the phrase is absent.
A caricature scratched on the wall of the Palatine palace in Rome,
and dating back to the third century, represents a human figure
with an ass’s head, hanging upon a cross, while a man stands
before it in the attitude of worship. Under the effigy is this
ill-spelled inscription: “Alexamenos adores his God.”
This appeal to the testimony of Christian consciousness was first
made by Schleiermacher. William E. Gladstone: “All I write, and
all I think, and all I hope, is based upon the divinity of our
Lord, the one central hope of our poor, wayward race.” E. G.
Robinson: “When you preach salvation by faith in Christ, you
preach the Trinity.” W. G. T. Shedd: “The construction of the
doctrine of the Trinity started, not from the consideration of the
three persons, but from belief in the deity of one of them.” On
the worship of Christ in the authorized services of the Anglican
church, see Stanley, Church and State, 333-335; Liddon, Divinity
of our Lord, 514.
In contemplating passages apparently inconsistent with those now cited, in
that they impute to Christ weakness and ignorance, limitation and
subjection, we are to remember, first, that our Lord was truly man, as
well as truly God, and that this ignorance and weakness may be predicated
of him as the God-man in whom deity and humanity are united; secondly,
that the divine nature itself was in some way limited and humbled during
our Savior’s earthly life, and that these passages may describe him as he
was in his estate of humiliation, rather than in his original and present
glory; and, thirdly, that there is an order of office and operation which
is consistent with essential oneness and equality, but which permits the
Father to be spoken of as first and the Son as second. These statements
will be further elucidated in the treatment of the present doctrine and in
subsequent examination of the doctrine of the Person of Christ.
There are certain things of which Christ was ignorant: _Mark
13:32—_“of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the
angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” He was subject
to physical fatigue: _John 4:6—_“Jesus therefore, being wearied
with his journey, sat thus by the well.” There was a limitation
connected with Christ’s taking of human flesh: _Phil.
2:7—_“emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in
the likeness of men”; _John 14:28—_“the Father is greater than I.”
There is a subjection, as respects order of office and operation,
which is yet consistent with equality of essence and oneness with
God; _1 Cor. 15:28—_“then shall the Son also himself be subjected
to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all
in all.” This must be interpreted consistently with _John
17:5—_“glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I
had with thee before the world was,” and with _Phil. 2:6_, where
this glory is described as being “_the form of God_” and
“_equality with God_.”
Even in his humiliation, Christ was the Essential Truth, and
ignorance in him never involved error or false teaching. Ignorance
on his part might make his teaching at times incomplete,—it never
in the smallest particular made his teaching false. Yet here we
must distinguish between what he _intended_ to teach and what was
merely _incidental_ to his teaching. When he said: Moses “wrote of
me”_ (John 5:46)_ and “David in the Spirit called him Lord”_ (Mat.
22:43)_, if his purpose was to teach the authorship of the
Pentateuch and of the 110th Psalm, we should regard his words as
absolutely authoritative. But it is possible that he intended only
to _locate_ the passages referred to, and if so, his words cannot
be used to exclude critical conclusions as to their authorship.
Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 136—“If he spoke of Moses or David,
it was only to identify the passage. The authority of the earlier
dispensation did not rest upon its record being due to Moses, nor
did the appropriateness of the Psalm lie in its being uttered by
David. There is no evidence that the question of authorship ever
came before him.” Adamson rather more precariously suggests that
“there may have been a lapse of memory in Jesus’ mention of
‘Zachariah, son of Barachiah’_ (Mat. 23:35)_, since this was a
matter of no spiritual import.”
For assertions of Jesus’ knowledge, see _John 2:24, 25—_“he knew
all men ... he needed not that any one should bear witness
concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man”;
_6:64—_“Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed
not, and who it was that should betray him”; _12:33—_“this he
said, signifying by what manner of death he should die”;
_21:19—_“Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he
[Peter] should glorify God”; _13:1—_“knowing that his hour was
come that he should depart”; _Mat. 25:31—_“when the Son of man
shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall
he sit on the throne of his glory” = he knew that he was to act as
final judge of the human race. Other instances are mentioned by
Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 24-49: 1. Jesus’ knowledge of Peter
(_John 1:42_); 2. his finding Philip (_1:43_); 3. his recognition
of Nathanael (_1:47-50_); 4. of the woman of Samaria (_4:17-19,
39_); 5. miraculous draughts of fishes (_Luke 5:6-9_; _John
21:6_); 6. death of Lazarus (_John 11:14_); 7. the ass’s colt
(_Mat. 21:2_); 8. of the upper room (_Mark 14:15_); 9. of Peter’s
denial (_Mat. 26:34_); 10. of the manner of his own death (_John
12:33_; _18:32_); 11. of the manner of Peter’s death (_John
21:19_); 12. of the fall of Jerusalem (_Mat. 24:2_).
On the other hand there are assertions and implications of Jesus’
ignorance: he did not know the day of the end (_Mark 13:32_),
though even here he intimates his superiority to angels;
_5:30-34—_“Who touched my garments?” though even here power had
gone forth from him to heal; _John 11:34—_“Where have ye laid
him?” though here he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead;
_Mark 11:13—_“seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came,
if haply he might find anything thereon” = he did not know that it
had no fruit, yet he had power to curse it. With these evidences
of the limitations of Jesus’ knowledge, we must assent to the
judgment of Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 33—“We must decline to
stake the authority of Jesus on a question of literary criticism”;
and of Gore, Incarnation, 195—“That the use by our Lord of such a
phrase as ‘_Moses wrote of me_’ binds us to the Mosaic authorship
of the Pentateuch as a whole, I do not think we need to yield.”
See our section on The Person of Christ; also Rush Rhees, Life of
Jesus, 243, 244. _Per contra_, see Swayne, Our Lord’s Knowledge as
Man; and Crooker, The New Bible, who very unwisely claims that
belief in a Kenosis involves the surrender of Christ’s authority
and atonement.
It is inconceivable that any mere _creature_ should say, “God is
greater than I am,” or should be spoken of as ultimately and in a
mysterious way becoming “subject to God.” In his state of
humiliation Christ was subject to the Spirit (_Acts 1:2—_“after
that he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit”;
_10:38—_“God anointed him with the Holy Spirit ... for God was
with him”; _Heb.9:14—_“through the eternal Spirit offered himself
without blemish unto God”), but in his state of exaltation Christ
is Lord of the Spirit (κυρίου πνεύματος—_2 Cor. 3:18_—Meyer),
giving the Spirit and working through the Spirit. _Heb. 2:7_,
marg.—“Thou madest him for a little while lower than the angels.”
On the whole subject, see Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 262, 351;
Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:61-64; Liddon, Our Lord’s
Divinity, 127, 207, 458; _per contra_, see Examination of Liddon,
252, 294; Professors of Andover Seminary, Divinity of Christ.
C. The Holy Spirit is recognized as God.
(_a_) He is spoken of as God; (_b_) the attributes of God are ascribed to
him, such as life, truth, love, holiness, eternity, omnipresence,
omniscience, omnipotence; (_c_) he does the works of God, such as
creation, regeneration, resurrection; (_d_) he receives honor due only to
God; (_e_) he is associated with God on a footing of equality, both in the
formula of baptism and in the apostolic benedictions.
(_a_) _Spoken of as God._ _Acts 5:3, 4—_“lie to the Holy Spirit
... not lied unto men, but unto God”; _1 Cor. 3:16—_“ye are a
temple of God ... the Spirit of God dwelleth in you”; _6:19—_“your
body is a temple of the Holy Spirit”; _12:4-6 _“same Spirit ...
same Lord ... same God, who worketh all things in all”—“The divine
Trinity is here indicated in an ascending climax, in such a way
that we pass from the Spirit who bestows the gifts to the Lord
[Christ] who is served by means of them, and finally to God, who
as the absolute first cause and possessor of all Christian powers
works the entire sum of all charismatic gifts in all who are
gifted” (Meyer in _loco_).
(_b_) _Attributes of God._ Life: _Rom. 8:2—_“Spirit of life.”
Truth: _John 16:13 _“Spirit of truth.” Love: _Rom. 15:30—_“love of
the Spirit.” Holiness: _Eph. 4:30—_“the Holy Spirit of God.”
Eternity: _Heb. 9:14—_“the eternal Spirit.” Omnipresence: _Ps.
139:7—_“Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?” Omniscience: _1 Cor.
12:11—_“all these [including gifts of healings and miracles]
worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one
severally even as he will.”
(_c_) _Works of God._ Creation: _Gen. 1:2_, marg.—“Spirit of God
was brooding upon the face of the waters.” Casting out of demons:
_Mat. 12:28—_“But if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons.”
Conviction of sin: _John 16:8—_“convict the world in respect of
sin.” Regeneration: _John 3:8—_“born of the Spirit”; _Tit.
3:5—_“renewing of the Holy Spirit.” Resurrection: _Rom.
8:11—_“give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit”;
_1 Cor. 15:45—_“The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”
(_d_) _Honor due to God._ _1 Cor. 3:16—_“ye are a temple of God
... the Spirit of God dwelleth in you”—he who inhabits the temple
is the object of worship there. See also the next item.
(_e_) _Associated with God._ Formula of baptism: _Mat.
28:19—_“baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.” If the baptismal formula is worship, then
we have here worship paid to the Spirit. Apostolic benedictions:
_2 Cor. 13:14—_“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of
God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” If the
apostolic benedictions are prayers, then we have here a prayer to
the Spirit. _1 Pet. 1:2—_“foreknowledge of God the Father ...
sanctification of the Spirit ... sprinkling of the blood of Jesus
Christ.”
On _Heb. 9:14_, Kendrick, Com. _in loco_, interprets: “Offers
himself by virtue of an eternal spirit which dwells within him and
imparts to his sacrifice a spiritual and an eternal efficacy. The
‘spirit’ here spoken of was not, then, the ‘Holy Spirit’; it was
not his purely divine nature; it was that blending of his divine
nature with his human personality which forms the mystery of his
being, that ‘spirit of holiness’ by virtue of which he was
declared ‘_the Son of God with power_,’ on account of his
resurrection from the dead.” Hovey adds a note to Kendrick’s
Commentary, _in loco_, as follows: “This adjective ‘_eternal_’
naturally suggests that the word ‘_Spirit_’ refers to the higher
and divine nature of Christ. His truly human nature, on its
spiritual side, was indeed eternal as to the future, but so also
is the spirit of every man. The unique and superlative value of
Christ’s self-sacrifice seems to have been due to the impulse of
the divine side of his nature.” The phrase “eternal spirit” would
then mean his divinity. To both these interpretations we prefer
that which makes the passage refer to the Holy Spirit, and we cite
in support of this view _Acts 1:2—_“he had given commandment
through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles”; _10:38—_“God anointed
him with the Holy Spirit.” On _1 Cor. 2:10_, Mason, Faith of the
Gospel, 63, remarks: “The Spirit of God finds nothing even in God
which baffles his scrutiny. His ‘search’ is not a seeking for
knowledge yet beyond him.... Nothing but God could search the
depths of God.”
As spirit is nothing less than the inmost principle of life, and the
spirit of man is man himself, so the spirit of God must be God (see 1 Cor.
2:11—Meyer). Christian experience, moreover, expressed as it is in the
prayers and hymns of the church, furnishes an argument for the deity of
the Holy Spirit similar to that for the deity of Jesus Christ. When our
eyes are opened to see Christ as a Savior, we are compelled to recognize
the work in us of a divine Spirit who has taken of the things of Christ
and has shown them to us; and this divine Spirit we necessarily
distinguish both from the Father and from the Son. Christian experience,
however, is not an original and independent witness to the deity of the
Holy Spirit: it simply shows what the church has held to be the natural
and unforced interpretation of the Scriptures, and so confirms the
Scripture argument already adduced.
The Holy Spirit is God himself personally present in the believer.
E. G. Robinson: “If ‘Spirit of God’ no more implies deity than
does ‘angel of God,’ why is not the Holy Spirit called simply the
angel or messenger, of God?” Walker, The Spirit and the
Incarnation, 337—“The Holy Spirit is God in his innermost being or
essence, the principle of life of both the Father and the Son;
that in which God, both as Father and Son, does everything, and in
which he comes to us and is in us increasingly through his
manifestations. Through the working and indwelling of this Holy
Spirit, God in his person of Son was fully incarnate in Christ.”
Gould, Am. Com. on _1 Cor. 2:11_—“For who among men knoweth the
things of a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him? even
so the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God”—“The
analogy must not be pushed too far, as if the Spirit of God and
God were coëxtensive terms, as the corresponding terms are,
substantially, in man. The point of the analogy is evidently
_self-knowledge_, and in both cases the contrast is between the
spirit within and anything outside.” Andrew Murray, Spirit of
Christ, 140—“We must not expect always to feel the power of the
Spirit when it works. Scripture links power and weakness in a
wonderful way, not as succeeding each other but as existing
together. ‘I was with you in weakness ... my preaching was in
power’_ (1 Cor. 2:3)_; ‘when I am weak then am I strong’_ (2 Cor.
12:10)_. The power is the power of God given to faith, and faith
grows strong in the dark.... He who would command nature must
first and most absolutely obey her.... We want to get possession
of the Power, and use it. God wants the Power to get possession of
us, and use us.”
This proof of the deity of the Holy Spirit is not invalidated by the
limitations of his work under the Old Testament dispensation. John
7:39—“for the Holy Spirit was not yet”—means simply that the Holy Spirit
could not fulfill his peculiar office as Revealer of Christ until the
atoning work of Christ should be accomplished.
_John 7:39_ is to be interpreted in the light of other Scriptures
which assert the agency of the Holy Spirit under the old
dispensation (_Ps. 51:11—_“take not thy holy Spirit from me”) and
which describe his peculiar office under the new dispensation
(_John 16:14, 15—_“he shall take of mine, and shall declare it
unto you”). Limitation in the _manner_ of the Spirit’s work in the
O. T. involved a limitation in the _extent_ and _power_ of it
also. Pentecost was the flowing forth of a tide of spiritual
influence which had hitherto been dammed up. Henceforth the Holy
Spirit was the Spirit of Jesus Christ, taking of the things of
Christ and showing them, applying his finished work to human
hearts, and rendering the hitherto localized Savior omnipresent
with his scattered followers to the end of time.
Under the conditions of his humiliation, Christ was a servant. All
authority in heaven and earth was given him only after his
resurrection. Hence he could not send the Holy Spirit until he
ascended. The mother can show off her son only when he is fully
grown. The Holy Spirit could reveal Christ only when there was a
complete Christ to reveal. The Holy Spirit could fully sanctify,
only after the example and motive of holiness were furnished in
Christ’s life and death. Archer Butler: “The divine Artist could
not fitly descend to make the copy, before the original had been
provided.”
And yet the Holy Spirit is “the eternal Spirit”_ (Heb. 9:14)_, and
he not only existed, but also wrought, in Old Testament times. _2
Pet. 1:21—_“men spake from God, being moved by the Holy
Spirit”—seems to fix the meaning of the phrase “the Holy Spirit,”
where it appears in the O. T. Before Christ “the Holy Spirit was
not yet”_ (John 7:39)_, just as before Edison electricity was not
yet. There was just as much electricity in the world before Edison
as there is now. Edison has only taught us its existence and how
to use it. Still we can say that, before Edison, electricity, as a
means of lighting, warming and transporting people, had no
existence. So until Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, as the revealer of
Christ, “_was not yet_.” Augustine calls Pentecost the _dies
natalis_, or birthday, of the Holy Spirit; and for the same reason
that we call the day when Mary brought forth her firstborn son the
birthday of Jesus Christ, though before Abraham was born, Christ
was. The Holy Spirit had been engaged in the creation, and had
inspired the prophets, but _officially_, as Mediator between men
and Christ, “_the Holy Spirit was not yet_.” He could not show the
things of Christ until the things of Christ were ready to be
shown. See Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 19-25; Prof. J. S.
Gubelmann, Person and Work of the Holy Spirit in O. T. Times. For
proofs of the deity of the Holy Spirit, see Walker, Doctrine of
the Holy Spirit; Hare, Mission of the Comforter; Parker, The
Paraclete; Cardinal Manning, Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost;
Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1:341-350. Further references will be
given in connection with the proof of the Holy Spirit’s
personality.
2. Intimations of the Old Testament.
The passages which seem to show that even in the Old Testament there are
three who are implicitly recognized as God may be classed under four
heads:
A. Passages which seem to teach plurality of some sort in the Godhead.
(_a_) The plural noun אלהים is employed, and that with a plural verb—a use
remarkable, when we consider that the singular אל was also in existence;
(_b_) God uses plural pronouns in speaking of himself; (_c_) Jehovah
distinguishes himself from Jehovah; (_d_) a Son is ascribed to Jehovah;
(_e_) the Spirit of God is distinguished from God; (_f_) there are a
threefold ascription and a threefold benediction.
(_a_) _Gen. 20:13—_“God caused [plural] me to wander from my
father’s house”; _35:7—_“built there an altar, and called the
place El-Beth-el; _because there God was revealed_ [plural] unto
him.” (_b_) _Gen. 1:26—_“Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness”; _3:22—_“Behold, the man is become as one of us”;
_11:7—_“Come, let us go down, and there confound their language”;
_Is. 6:8—_“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” (_c_) _Gen.
19:24—_“Then Jehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone
and fire from Jehovah out of heaven”; _Hos. 1:7—_“I will have
mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by Jehovah,
their God”; _cf._ _2 Tim. 1:18—_“The Lord grant unto him to find
mercy of the Lord in that day”—though Ellicott here decides
adversely to the Trinitarian reference. (_d_) _Ps. 2:7—_“Thou art
my son; this day have I begotten thee”; _Prov. 30:4—_“Who hath
established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what
is his son’s name, if thou knowest?” (_e_) _Gen. 1:1 and 2,
marg.—_“God created ... the Spirit of God was brooding”; _Ps.
33:6—_“By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made, And all the
host of them by the breath [spirit] of his mouth”; _Is.
48:16—_“the Lord Jehovah hath sent me, and his Spirit”; _63:7,
10—_“loving kindnesses of Jehovah ... grieved his holy Spirit.”
(_f_) _Is. 6:3_—the trisagion: “_Holy, holy, holy_”; _Num.
6:24-26—_“Jehovah bless thee, and keep thee: Jehovah make his face
to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: Jehovah lift up his
countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.”
It has been suggested that as Baal was worshiped in different
places and under different names, as Baal-Berith, Baal-hanan,
Baal-peor, Baal-zeebub, and his priests could call upon any one of
these as possessing certain personified attributes of Baal, while
yet the whole was called by the plural term “Baalim,” and Elijah
could say: “Call ye upon your Gods,” so “Elohim” may be the
collective designation of the God who was worshiped in different
localities; see Robertson Smith, Old Testament in the Jewish
Church, 229. But this ignores the fact that Baal is always
addressed in the singular, never in the plural, while the plural
“Elohim” is the term commonly used in addresses to God. This seems
to show that “Baalim” is a collective term, while “Elohim” is not.
So when Ewald, Lehre von Gott, 2:333, distinguishes five names of
God, corresponding to five great periods of the history of Israel,
_viz._, the “Almighty” of the Patriarchs, the “Jehovah” of the
Covenant, the “God of Hosts” of the Monarchy, the “Holy One” of
the Deuteronomist and the later prophetic age, and the “Our Lord”
of Judaism, he ignores the fact that these designations are none
of them confined to the times to which they are attributed, though
they may have been predominantly used in those times.
The fact that אלהים is sometimes used in a narrower sense, as applicable
to the Son (Ps. 45:6; _cf._ Heb. 1:8), need not prevent us from believing
that the term was originally chosen as containing an allusion to a certain
plurality in the divine nature. Nor is it sufficient to call this plural a
simple _pluralis majestaticus_; since it is easier to derive this common
figure from divine usage than to derive the divine usage from this common
figure—especially when we consider the constant tendency of Israel to
polytheism.
_Ps. 45:6_; _cf._ _Heb. 1:8—_“of the Son he saith, Thy throne, O
God, is for ever and ever.” Here it is God who calls Christ
“_God_” or “_Elohim_.” The term Elohim has here acquired the
significance of a singular. It was once thought that the royal
style of speech was a custom of a later date than the time of
Moses. Pharaoh does not use it. In _Gen. 41:41-44_, he says: “I
have set thee over all the land of Egypt ... I am Pharaoh.” But
later investigations seem to prove that the plural for God was
used by the Canaanites before the Hebrew occupation. The one
Pharaoh is called “my gods” or “my god,” indifferently. The word
“master” is usually found in the plural in the O. T. (_cf._ _Gen.
24:9, 51_; _39:19_; _40:1_). The plural gives utterance to the
sense of awe. It signifies magnitude or completeness. (See The
Bible Student, Aug. 1900:67.)