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| How the Prophets and Holy Men of the Old Testament Knew the Things of Christ.
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2. How the Prophets and
Holy Men of the Old Testament Knew the Things of Christ.
“And this is the witness of John.”4812
This is the second recorded testimony
of John the Baptist to Christ. The first begins with “This
was He of whom I said, He that cometh after me,” and goes down to
“The only-begotten Son of God who is in the bosom of the Father,
He hath declared him.” Heracleon supposes the words,
“No one has seen God at any time,” etc., to have been
spoken, not by the Baptist, but by the disciple. But in this he
is not sound. He himself allows the words, “Of his fulness
we all received, and grace for grace; for the law was given by Moses,
but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” to have been spoken by
the Baptist. And does it not follow that the person who received
of the fulness of Christ, and a second grace in addition to that he had
before, and who declared the law to have been given by Moses, but grace
and truth to have come through Jesus Christ, is it not clear that this
is the person who understood, from what he received from the fulness of
Christ, how “no one hath seen God at any time,” and how
“the only-begotten who is in the bosom of the Father” had
delivered the declaration about God to him and to all those who had
received of His fulness? He was not declaring here for the first
time Him that is in the bosom of the Father, as if there had never
before been any one fit to receive what he told His Apostles.
Does he not teach us that he was before Abraham, and that Abraham
rejoiced and was glad to see his day? The words “Of his
fulness all we received,” and “Grace for grace,”
show, as we have already made clear, that the prophets also received
their gift from the fulness of Christ and received a second grace in
place of that they had before; for they also, led by the Spirit,
advanced from the introduction they had in types to the vision of
truth. Hence not all the prophets, but many of them,4813
desired to see the things, which the
Apostles saw. For if there was a difference among the prophets,
those who were perfect and more distinguished of them did not desire to
see what the Apostles saw, but actually beheld them, while those who
rose less fully than these to the height of the Word were filled with
longing for the things which the Apostles knew through Christ.
The word “saw” we have not taken in a physical sense, and
the word “heard” we have taken to refer to a spiritual
communication; only he who has ears is prepared to hear the words of
Jesus—a thing which does not happen too frequently. There
is the further point, that the saints before the bodily advent of Jesus
had an advantage over most believers in their insight into the
mysteries of divinity, since the Word of God was their teacher before
He became flesh, for He was always working , in imitation of His Father, of whom He
says, “My father worketh hitherto.” On this point we
may adduce the words He addresses to the Sadducees, who do not believe
the doctrine of the resurrection. “Have you not
read,” He says,4814
“what is said
by God at the Bush, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and
the God of Jacob; He is not the God of the dead but of the
living.” If, then, God is not ashamed to be called the God
of these men, and if they are counted by Christ among the living, and
if all believers are sons of Abraham,4815
since all the Gentiles are blessed with faithful Abraham, who is
appointed by God to be a father of the Gentiles, can we hesitate to
admit that those living persons made acquaintance with the learning of
living men, and were taught by Christ who was born before the
daystar,4816
before He became
flesh? And for this cause they lived, because they had part in
Him who said, “I am the life,” and as the heirs of so great
promises received the vision, not only of angels, but of God in
Christ. For they saw, it may be, the image of the invisible
God,4817
since he who hath seen the Son hath seen the
Father, and so they are recorded to have known God, and to have heard
God’s words worthily, and, therefore, to have seen God and heard
Him. Now, I consider that those who are fully and really sons of
Abraham are sons of his actions, spiritually understood, and of the
knowledge which was made manifest to him. What he knew and what
he did appears again in those who are his sons, as the Scripture
teaches those who have ears to hear,4818
“If ye
were the children of Abraham, ye would do the works of
Abraham.” And if it is a true proverb4819
which says, “A wise man will
understand that which proceeds from his own mouth, and on his lips he
will bear prudence,” then we must at once repudiate some things
which have been said about the prophets, as if they were not wise men,
and did not understand what proceeded from their own mouths. We
must believe what is good and true about the prophets, that they were
sages, that they did understand what proceeded from their mouths, and
that they bore prudence on their lips. It is clear indeed that
Moses understood in his mind the truth (real meaning) of the law, and
the higher interpretations of the stories recorded in his books.
Joshua, too, understood the meaning of the allotment of the land after
the destruction of the nine and twenty kings, and could see better than
we can the realities of which his achievements were the shadows.
It is clear, too, that Isaiah saw the mystery of Him who sat upon the
throne, and of the two seraphim, and of the veiling of their faces and
their feet, and of their wings, and of the altar and of the
tongs. Ezekiel, too, understood the true significance of the
cherubim and of their goings, and of the firmament that was above them,
and of Him that sat on the throne, than all which what could be loftier
or more splendid? I need not enter into more particulars; the
point I aim at establishing is clear enough already, namely, that those
who were made perfect in earlier generations knew not less than the
Apostles did of what Christ revealed to them, since the same teacher
was with them as He who revealed to the Apostles the unspeakable
mysteries of godliness. I will add but a few points, and then
leave it to the reader to judge and to form what views he pleases on
this subject. Paul says in his Epistle to the Romans,4820
“Now, to him who is able to establish
you according to my Gospel, according to the revelation of the mystery
which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, but is now made
manifest by the prophetic Scriptures and the appearance of our Lord
Jesus Christ.” For if the mystery concealed of old is made
manifest to the Apostles through the prophetic writings, and if the
prophets, being wise men, understood what proceeded from their own
mouths, then the prophets knew what was made manifest to the
Apostles. But to many it was not revealed, as Paul says,4821
“In other generations it was not made
known to the sons of men as it hath now been revealed unto His holy
Apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs
and members of the same body.” Here an objection may be
raised by those who do not share the view we have propounded; and it
becomes of importance to define what is meant by the word
“revealed.” It is capable of two meanings:
firstly, that the thing in question is understood, but secondly, if a
prophecy is spoken of, that it is accomplished. Now, the fact
that the Gentiles were to be fellow-heirs and members of the same
body, and partakers of the promise,
was known to the prophets to this extent, that they knew the Gentiles
were to fellow-heirs and members of the same body, and partakers of the
promise in Christ. When this should be, and why, and what
Gentiles were spoken of, and how, though strangers from the covenants,
and aliens to the promises, they were yet to be members of one body and
sharers of the blessings; all this was known to the prophets, being
revealed to them. But the things prophesied belong to the future,
and are not revealed to those who know them, but do not witness their
fulfilment, as they are to those who have the event before their
eyes. And this was the position of the Apostles. Thus, I
conceive, they knew the events no more than the fathers and the
prophets did; and yet it is truly said of them that “what to
other generations was not revealed was now revealed to the Apostles and
prophets, that the Gentiles were fellow-heirs and members of the same
body, and partakers in the promise of Christ.” For, in
addition to knowing these mysteries, they saw the power at work in the
accomplished fact. The passage, “Many prophets and
righteous men desired to see the things ye see and did not see them;
and to hear the things ye hear and did not hear them,” may be
interpreted in the same way. They also desired to see the mystery
of the incarnation of the Son of God, and of His coming down to carry
out the design of His suffering for the salvation of many, actually put
in operation. This may be illustrated from another quarter.
Suppose one of the Apostles to have understood the “unspeakable
words which it is not lawful for a man to utter,”4822
but not to witness the glorious bodily
appearing of Jesus to the faithful. which is promised, although He
desired to see it and suppose another had not only not4823
| 4823 Lommatzsch omits
οὐ before ἠκριβωκότα,
but it is necessary to the sense. | marked and seen what that Apostle marked and
saw, but had a much feebler grasp of the divine hope, and yet is
present at the second coming of our Saviour, which the Apostle, as in
the parallel above, had desired, but had not seen. We shall not
err from the truth if we say that both of these have seen what the
Apostle, or indeed the Apostles, desired to see, and yet that they are
not on that account to be deemed wiser or more blessed than the
Apostles. In the same way, also, the Apostles are not to be
deemed wiser than the fathers, or than Moses and the prophets, than
those in fact who, for their virtue, were found worthy of epiphanies
and of divine manifestations and of revelations of
mysteries.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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