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| A Brief Reference to the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke. Their Agreement with St. John, in Respect to the Distinct Personality of the Father and the Son.
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Chapter XXVI.—A Brief
Reference to the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke. Their Agreement
with St. John, in Respect to the Distinct Personality of the Father and
the Son.
In addition to Philip’s conversation, and
the Lord’s reply to it,
the reader will observe that we have run through John’s Gospel
to show that many other passages of a clear purport, both before
and after that chapter, are only in strict accord with that single and
prominent statement, which must be interpreted agreeably to all other
places, rather than in opposition to them, and indeed to its own
inherent and natural sense. I will not here largely use the support of
the other Gospels, which confirm our belief by the Lord’s
nativity: it is sufficient to remark that He who had to be born
of a virgin is announced in express terms by the angel himself as the
Son of God: “The Spirit of God shall come upon thee, and the
power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also the Holy
Thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of
God.”8125
On this passage
even they will wish to raise a cavil; but truth will prevail. Of
course, they say, the Son of God is God, and the power of the highest
is the Most High. And they do not hesitate to insinuate8126
what, if it had been true, would have been
written. Whom was he8127
| 8127 i.e., the angel of the
Annunciation. | so afraid of as not
plainly to declare, “God shall come upon thee, and the Highest
shall overshadow thee?” Now, by saying “the Spirit of
God” (although the Spirit of God is God,) and by not
directly naming God, he wished that portion8128
| 8128 On this not
strictly defensible term of Tertullian, see Bp. Bull’s Defence
of the Nicene Creed, book ii. ch. vii. sec. 5, Translation, pp.
199, 200. | of
the whole Godhead to be understood, which was about to retire
into the designation of “the Son.” The Spirit of God in
this passage must be the same as the Word. For just as, when
John says, “The Word was made flesh,”8129
we understand the Spirit also in the mention
of the Word: so here, too, we acknowledge the Word likewise in the name
of the Spirit. For both the Spirit is the substance of the Word, and
the Word is the operation of the Spirit, and the Two are One (and the
same).8130
| 8130 “The
selfsame Person is understood under the appellation both of
Spirit and Word, with this difference only, that He is
called ‘the Spirit of God,’ so far as He is a Divine
Person,…and ‘the Word,’ so far as He is the Spirit in
operation, proceeding with sound and vocal utterance from God to set
the universe in order.”—Bp. Bull,
Def. Nic. Creed, p. 535, Translation. | Now John must mean
One when he speaks of Him as “having been made
flesh,” and the angel Another when he announces Him as
“about to be born,” if the Spirit is not the Word, and the
Word the Spirit. For just as the Word of God is not actually He whose
Word He is, so also the Spirit (although He is called God) is
not actually He whose Spirit He is said to be. Nothing which
belongs to something else is actually the very same thing as that to
which it belongs. Clearly, when anything proceeds from a personal
subject,8131
and so belongs to
him, since it comes from him, it may possibly be such in quality
exactly as the personal subject himself is from whom it proceeds, and
to whom it belongs. And thus the Spirit is God, and the Word is God,
because proceeding from God, but yet is not actually the very same as
He from whom He proceeds. Now that which is God of God, although He is
an actually existing thing,8132
yet He cannot be
God Himself8133
| 8133 Ipse Deus: i.e., God
so wholly as to exclude by identity every other person. | (exclusively), but
so far God as He is of the same substance as God Himself, and as being
an actually existing thing, and as a portion of the Whole. Much more
will “the power of the Highest” not be the Highest Himself,
because It is not an actually existing thing, as being Spirit—in
the same way as the wisdom (of God) and the providence
(of God) is not God: these attributes are not substances, but
the accidents of the particular substance. Power is incidental to the
Spirit, but cannot itself be the Spirit. These things, therefore,
whatsoever they are—(I mean) the Spirit of God, and the Word and
the Power—having been conferred on the Virgin, that which is born
of her is the Son of God. This He Himself, in those other Gospels also,
testifies Himself to have been from His very boyhood: “Wist ye
not,” says He, “that I must be about my
Father’s business?”8134
Satan likewise
knew Him to be this in his temptations: “Since Thou art the
Son of God.”8135
This, accordingly,
the devils also acknowledge Him to be: “we know Thee, who Thou
art, the Holy Son of God.”8136
His “Father” He Himself adores.8137
| 8137 Matt. xi. 25, 26; Luke x. 21; John xi.
41. | When acknowledged by Peter as the
“Christ (the Son) of God,”8138
He
does not deny the relation. He exults in spirit when He says to
the Father, “I thank Thee, O Father, because Thou hast hid
these things from the wise and prudent.”8139
He, moreover, affirms also that to no man is the Father known, but to
His Son;8140
and promises that,
as the Son of the Father, He will confess those who confess Him,
and deny those who deny Him, before His Father.8141
He
also introduces a parable of the mission to the vineyard of the Son
(not the Father), who was sent after so many servants,8142
and slain by the husbandmen, and
avenged by the Father. He is
also ignorant of the last day and hour, which is known to the Father
only.8143
He awards the kingdom to His disciples, as
He says it had been appointed to Himself by the Father.8144
He has power to ask, if He will, legions of
angels from the Father for His help.8145
He exclaims
that God had forsaken Him.8146
He commends His
spirit into the hands of the Father.8147
After His
resurrection He promises in a pledge to His disciples that He will send
them the promise of His Father;8148
and lastly, He
commands them to baptize into the Father and the Son and the Holy
Ghost, not into a unipersonal God.8149
And indeed it
is not once only, but three times, that we are immersed into the Three
Persons, at each several mention of Their names.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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