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CXLVI. To John the
Œconomus.2046
| 2046 Cf.
note on page 288. This letter, or rather doctrinal statement is
incomplete. Garnerius supposes it to have been written during
Theodoret’s retirement after the Council of Chalcedon. There he
cut himself off from society and wished to devote himself to study and
contemplation. |
Rest and a life free from care
are very grateful to me. I have therefore blocked the door of the
monastery, and decline intercourse with my friends.
But I have received information
that fresh attacks are being made against the Faith of the Gospels, and
therefore conclude that there may be danger in my silence. When wrong
has been done some mortal prince, not only the guilty authors of the
outrage but they also who have been standing by and made no effort to
drive off the assailants, are in peril of punishment: What penalty then
ought not to be undergone by men who can venture to look lightly on the
utterance of blasphemy against our God and Saviour? This is the fear
which has impelled me now to write and expose the innovations of which
I have been informed.
It is said that a common report
in the city represents that after certain presbyters had offered
prayer, and concluded it in the wonted manner, while some said
“For to Thee belongs glory and to thy Christ and to the Holy
Ghost;” and others “Through grace and loving kindness of
thy Christ, with whom belongs glory to Thee with thy holy
Spirit,” the very wise archdeacon prohibited the use of the
expression, “the Christ” and said that the “only
begotten” ought to be glorified. If this is true it were
impossible to exceed the impiety. For he either divides the one Lord
Jesus Christ into two sons and regards the only begotten Son as lawful
and natural, but the Christ as adopted and spurious, and consequently
unmeet for being honoured in doxology; or else he is endeavouring to
support the heresy which has now burst in on us with the riot of wild
revelry. Had a grievous tempest been now oppressing us, any one might
have supposed that the blasphemer suited his blasphemy to the necessity
of the moment, through fear of the power of the originators of the
heresy. But now that He who is blasphemed has rebuked the winds and the
sea, and blessed the storm-tossed churches with a calm, while
everywhere by land and sea the proclamation of the apostles is
preached, what room is there for the blasphemy? While not even they who
have lately basely inserted among the doctrines of the Church that
flesh and godhead are of one and the same nature have ever forbidden
the offering of praise to the Lord Christ. This fact may be easily
ascertained from those who have returned thence. A man holding the
foremost place in the ecclesiastical rank ought to have known the
divine Scripture, and to have learnt from it that just as the heralds
of the truth rank the only begotten Son with the Father, so accordingly
using the title of “the Christ” instead of that of
“Son” they number Him sometimes with the Father and
sometimes with the Holy Ghost; for the Christ is none other than the
only begotten Son of God. So we may quote the divine Paul writing to
the Corinthians, but teaching the world, that “There is one God
the Father of whom are all things…and one Lord Jesus Christ by
whom are all things.”2047
Thus he calls
the same person, Christ, Jesus, Lord, and Creator of all things. And
writing to the Thessalonians he says “Now God Himself and our
Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto you.”2048
And in his second epistle to the same he
puts the Christ before the Father, not to invert the order, but to
teach that the order of the names does not indicate a distinction of
dignity and nature. His words are “Now our Lord Jesus Christ
Himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given
us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your
hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work.”2049
And at the end of his Epistle to the
Romans after certain exhortations he adds “I beseech you brethren
for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake and for the love of the
spirit.”2050
Now if he had known
the Christ as being any other than the Son he would not have put Him
before the Holy Ghost. Writing to the Corinthians, at the very
beginning of his letter, he mentions the name of Christ as alone
sufficient to influence the faithful. “Now I beseech you brethren
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye all speak the same
thing”2051
and when writing to them a second time
he thus concludes “The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the
love of God the Father and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you
all.”2052
Here he puts the name of Christ not
only before the Spirit, but also before the Father and this in all the
churches is the beginning of the Liturgy of the Mystery.
According, then, to this
extraordinary regulation the august name of our God and Saviour, Jesus
Christ, ought to be omitted from the mystic writings. But it is
unnecessary to say more on this point. The opening of every one of his
letters is distinguished by the divine Apostle with this address. At
one time it is “Paul a servant of Jesus Christ called to be an
apostle.”2053
At another
“Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ.”2054
At another “Paul a servant of God and
an apostle of Jesus Christ.”2055
And suiting
his benediction to his exordium he deduces it from the same source and
links the title of the Son with God the Father, saying “Grace to
you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”2056
And he graces the conclusion of his
letters with the blessing “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be
with you all, amen.”2057
Copious additional evidence may
be found whereby it may be learnt without difficulty that our Lord
Jesus Christ is no other person than the Son which completes the
Trinity. For the same before the ages was only begotten Son and God the
Word, and after the resurrection He was called Jesus and Christ,
receiving the names from the facts. Jesus means Saviour; “Thou
shalt call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from their
sins.”2058
He is named Christ from being as
man anointed with the Holy Ghost, and called our High Priest, Apostle,
Prophet and King. Long ago the divine Moses exclaimed “The Lord
thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet, from the midst of thee, of
thy brethren, like unto me.”2059
And the
divine David cries “The Lord hath sworn and will not repent, Thou
art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedek.”2060
This prophecy is confirmed by the divine
Apostle.2061
And again “seeing then that we
have a great High Priest that has passed into the heavens, Jesus the
Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.”2062
That as God, He is king before
the ages that prophetic minstrelsy teaches us in the words “Thy
throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a
right sceptre.”2063
His majesty as man is also shown
us. For having the sovereignty of all things as God and Creator, He
assumes this majesty as man, wherefore it is added “Thou lovest
righteousness and hatest wickedness, therefore God thy God hath
anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”2064
And in the second psalm the anointed one
himself says “Yet was I set as king by Him upon the holy hill of
Sion, I will declare the decree of the Lord. The Lord hath said unto me
‘Thou art my Son this day have I begotten Thee; ask of me and I
shall give Thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost
parts of the earth for thy possession.’”2065
This He said as man, for as man He receives
what as God He possesses. And at the very beginning of the psalm the
gift of prophecy ranks Him with God the Father in the words “Why
do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing. The kings of
the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against
the Lord and against His anointed.”2066
Let no one then foolishly
suppose that the Christ is any other than the only begotten Son. Let us
not imagine ourselves wiser than the gift of the Spirit. Let us hear
the words of the great Peter, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of
the living God.”2067
Let us hear the
Lord Christ confirming this confession, for “On this rock,”
He says, “I will build my church and the gates of Hell shall not
prevail against it.”2068
| 2068 It will be observed that our author omits the verse containing the
famous paronomasia, and that what he regards the Saviour as confirming
is not any supposed authority on the part of the speaker but the
identification of Himself with the Christ and of the Christ with the
Son of the living God. | Wherefore too
the wise Paul, most excellent master builder of the churches, fixed no
other foundation than this. “I,” he says, “as a wise
master builder have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon.
But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other
foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus
Christ.”2069
How then can they
think of any other foundation, when they are bidden not to fix a
foundation, but to build on that which is laid? The divine writer
recognises Christ as the foundation, and glories in this title, as when
he says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet
not I but Christ liveth in me.”2070
And again “To me to live is Christ and to die is gain,”2071
and again “For I determined not to
know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”2072
And a little before he says, “But
we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the
Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called both Jews and
Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”2073
And in his Epistle to the Galatians he
writes, “But when it pleased God who separated me from my
mother’s womb and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me
that I might preach Him among the heathen.”2074
But when writing to the Corinthians he
does not say we preach “the Son” but “Christ
crucified,” herein doing no violence to his commission, but
recognising the same to be Jesus, Christ, Lord, only begotten, and God
the Word. For the same reason too at the beginning of his letter to the
Romans he calls himself “servant of Jesus Christ” and
describes himself as “separated unto the gospel of God, which He
had promised afore by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning
His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power”2075
and so on. He calls the same both Jesus
Christ, and Son of David, and Son of God, as God and Lord of all, and
yet in the middle of his epistle, after making mention of the Jews, he
adds, “whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh
Christ came, who is over all God blessed for ever, amen.”2076
Here he says that He who according to the
flesh derived His descent from the Jews is eternal God and is praised
by the right minded as Lord of all created things. The same teaching is
given us in the Apostle’s words to the excellent Titus
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the
great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.”2077
Here he calls the same both Saviour, and
great God, and Jesus Christ. And in another place he writes, “In
the kingdom of Christ and of God.”2078
| 2078 Ephes. v. 5. Here the A.V.
rather obscures the force of the original. The R.V. alters to “in
the kingdom of Christ and God,” but even this hardly brings out
Theodoret’s views of ἐν τῆ
βασιλεί& 139·
τοῦ Χριστοῦ
καὶ Θεοῦ,
“in the kingdom of the Christ and God.” The mss. do not vary. At the same time it will be borne in
mind that the anarthrous use of “Θεός” is not
infrequent, and that some commentators (cf. Alford ad loc.)
would hesitate to ground on this passage the argument of the text. The
reading of א
and Β
in John i. 18 “ὁ μονογενὴς
Θεός” is
significant. | Moreover the chorus of the angels
announced to the shepherds “Unto you is born this day in the city
of David…Christ the Lord.”2079
But to men who meditate on
God’s law day and night, it is indeed needless to write all the
proofs of this kind; the above are sufficient to persuade even the most
obstinate opponents not to divide the divine titles. One point,
however, I cannot endure to omit. He is alleged to have said that there
are many Christs but one Son. Into this error I suppose he fell through
ignorance. For if he had read the divine Scripture, he would have known
that the title of the Son has also been bestowed by our bountiful Lord
on many. The lawgiver Moses, the writer of the ancient history, says
“And the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair
and they took them wives of them,”2080
and the God of all Himself said to this Prophet “Thou shalt say
unto Pharaoh, Israel is my son even my first-born.”2081
In the great song he says “Rejoice
O ye nations with His people and let all the sons of God be strong in
Him;”2082
and by the mouth of the prophet
Isaiah He says “I have nourished and brought up sons (children)
and they have rebelled against me;”2083
and through the thrice blessed David
“I have said ye are gods and all of you are children of the Most
High,”2084
and to the Romans the wise Paul
wrote in this manner, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of
God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of
bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption,
whereby we cry, Abba, Father. For the Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit, that we are the children of God. And if children, then
heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ: if so be that we
suffer with Him that we may be also glorified together;”2085
and to the Galatians he writes “And
because ye are sons God hath sent forth the spirit of His Son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant but
a son; and if a son then an heir of God through Jesus Christ.”2086
The lesson he gives to the Ephesians is
“in love having predestinated us into the adoption of children by
Jesus Christ to Himself.”2087
| 2087 Ephes. i. 4,
5.
Observe the position of “in love” which agrees with the
margin of R.V. |
If then, because the name of the
Christ is common, we ought not to glorify the Christ as God, we shall
equally shrink from worshipping Him as Son, since this also is a name
which has been bestowed upon many. And why do I say the Son? The very
name of God itself has been given by God to many. “The Lord the
God of gods hath spoken and called the earth.”2088
And “I have said Ye are
gods,”2089
and “Thou shalt not revile
the gods.”2090
Many too have
appropriated this name to themselves. The dæmons who have deceived
mankind have given this title to idols; whence Jeremiah exclaims,
“The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth even they
shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens;”2091
and again “They made to themselves
gods of silver and gods of gold;”2092
| 2092 This seems to be an inaccurate quotation of Baruch vi. 11. cf. p. 165
n. |
and the prophet Isaiah when he had mocked the making of the idols, and
said “He burneth part thereof in the fire with part thereof he
eateth flesh he warmeth himself and saith Aha I am warm I have seen the
fire,”2093
went on “and the residue
thereof he maketh a god and falleth down unto it and saith
‘Deliver me for thou art my god’”2094
and so the prophet laments over them and
says “Know that their heart is ashes.”2095
And the Psalmist David has taught us to
sing “For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord
made the heavens.”2096
But this common use of titles
gives no offence to men who are instructed in true religion. We are
aware that the dæmons have falsely bestowed upon themselves
and on
idols the divine name, while the saints have received this honour of
free grace.
In reality and by nature it is
the God of all, and His only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit which are
God. This is distinctly taught us by the admirable Paul in the words
“For though there be that are called gods whether in heaven or in
earth, as there are gods many and lords many, but to us there is but
one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one
Lord by whom are all things and we by Him.”2097
And the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit
of God and so also is the soul of man, for, it is written, “His
breath goeth forth,”2098
and “O ye
spirits and souls of the righteous bless ye the Lord,”2099
and the Psalmist David called the angels
spirits. “Who maketh His angels spirits and His ministers a flame
of fire.”2100
Why indeed do I
mention the angels and the souls of men? Even the dæmons are so
called by the Lord “He shall take unto him seven other spirits
more wicked than himself and they shall enter in, and the last state of
that man shall be worse than the first.”2101
But even this application of the name does not offend the pious reader,
for the Father and His only begotten Son and His Holy Spirit are one
God by nature; and the divine Word made man, our Lord Jesus Christ, is
by nature one Son, only begotten of the Father; and the Comforter who
completes the number of the Trinity is one Holy Ghost. Thus though many
are named fathers, we worship one Father, the Father before the ages,
who Himself gave this title to men, as the Apostle says, “For
this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of
whom every fatherhood in heaven and earth is named.”2102
| 2102 Ephes. iii.
14.
R.V. marg. It will be seen that the argument of Theodoret does not
admit of the translation “whole family” as in
A.V. | Let us not then, because others are called
christs, rob ourselves of the worship of our Lord Jesus Christ. For
just as though many are called gods and fathers, there is one God and
Father over all and before the ages; and though many are called sons,
there is one real and natural Son; and though many are styled spirits
there is one Holy Ghost; just so though many are called christs there
is one Lord Jesus Christ by Whom are all things. And very properly does
the Church cling to this name; for she has heard Paul, escorter of the
Bride, exclaiming “I have espoused you to one husband that I may
present you as a chaste virgin to Christ,”2103
and again “Husbands love your wives
as Christ also loved the Church,”2104
and again “For this cause shall a man leave his father and
mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one
flesh. This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the
Church.”2105
Listen to him as he
says “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being
made a curse for us,”2106
and elsewhere
“Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus
Christ were baptized into His death,”2107
and in another place, “For as many of you as have been baptized
into Christ have put on Christ,”2108
and again “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not
provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lust thereof.”2109
They who are blessed by the
boons of God and have learnt to know these passages and others like
them, kindled with warm love for their bountiful Master, constantly
carry on their lips this His dearest name and cry in the words of the
Song of Songs “My beloved is mine and I am his;” “I
sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet
to my taste.”2110
And besides all
this that name of ours which we love so well we have derived from the
name of Christ. We are called Christians.2111
| 2111 Acts xi. 26. “The word
seems to have been in the first instance a nickname fastened by the
heathen populace of Antioch on the followers of Christ, who still
continued to style themselves the ‘disciples’ or the
‘saints’ or the ‘brethren’ or the
‘believers,’ and the like. The biting gibes of the
Antiochene populace which stung to the quick successive
emperors—Hadrian, M. Aurelius, Severus, Julian—would be
little disposed to spare the helpless adherents of this new
‘superstition.’ Objection indeed has been taken to the
Antiochene origin of the name on the ground that the termination is
Roman, like Pompeianus, Cæsarianus, and the like. But this
termination, if it was Latin, was certainly Asiatic likewise, as
appears from such words as ᾽Ασιανός, βακτριανός, Σαρδιανός, Τραλλιανός, ᾽Αρειανός, Μενανδριανός, Σαβελλιανός. The next occurrence of the word in a Christian document
is on the occasion of St. Paul’s appearance before Festus (a.d. 60). It is not however put in the mouth of a
believer, but occurs in the scornful jest of Agrippa, ‘With but
little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian’
(Acts
xxvi. 28). The third and last example occurs a few years later. In the
first Epistle of St. Peter, presumably about a.d. 66 or 67, the Apostle writes ‘Let not any of
you suffer as a murderer or a thief…but if (he suffers) as a
Christian, let him not be ashamed but glorify God’ (iv. 15). Here again the term
is not the Apostle’s own, but represents the charge brought
against the believers by their heathen accusers. In the New Testament
there is no indication that the name was yet adopted by the disciples
of Christ as their own. Thus Christian documents again confirm the
statement of Tacitus that as early as the Neronian persecution this
name prevailed, and the same origin also is indirectly suggested by
those notices, which he directly states—not ‘qui sese
appellabant Christianos’ but ‘quos vulgus appellabat
Christianos.’ It was a gibe of the common people against
‘the brethren.’” Bp. Lightfoot Ap. Fathers, II. i.
417. |
Of this name the Lord of all
says, “The Lord God shall call His servants by another name which
shall be blessed on the earth”2112
and the
following is the reason why the Church specially clings to this name.
When the only-begotten Son of God was made man, then He was named Christ, then
human nature received the beams of intellectual light; then the heralds
of the truth shed their beams upon the world. Teachers of the Church,
however, constantly used the names of the only begotten without
distinction; at one time they glorify the Father the Son and the Holy
Ghost; at another the Father with Christ and the Holy Ghost; yet as far
as the sense is concerned there is here no difference. Wherefore after
the Lord had commanded to baptize in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost the blessed Peter said to them who received
his preaching and asked what they must do, “Believe and be
baptized every one of you in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ,”2113
as though this
name contained in itself all the potency of the divine command. The
same teaching is clearly given us by the great Basil, luminary of the
Cappadocians,2114
| 2114 i.e. of Cæsarea. The Cappadocian Cæsarea originally
called Mazaca is still Kasaria. | or rather of the
world. His words are “the name of Christ is the confession of the
whole.” It indicates at once the Father, who anointed, the Son,
who was anointed, and the Holy Ghost whereby He was anointed.
Furthermore the thrice blessed Fathers assembled in council at
Nicæa, after saying that we must believe in one God, the Father,
added “and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of
God.” Thereby they teach that the Lord Jesus Christ is Himself
the only begotten Son of God.
To what has been said it must
also be added that we must not affirm that after the ascension the Lord
Christ is not Christ but only begotten Son. The divine Gospels and the
history of the Acts and the Epistles of the Apostle himself were, as we
know, written after the ascension. It is after the ascension that the
divine Paul exclaims “Seeing then that we have a great High
Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us
hold fast our profession.”2115
| 2115 Heb. iv. 14. On the opinion
of the Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews cf. note on
page 37. The Alexandrian view is shewn to have affected the Eastern
Church. For the reading “Jesus Christ” instead of Jesus the
Son of God on which Theodoret’s argument depends there is no
manuscript authority. | And again,
“For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands,
which are the figures of the true; but into Heaven itself, now to
appear in the presence of God for us.”2116
And again after speaking of our hope in God he adds “which hope
we have as an anchor both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into
that within the veil; whither the forerunner is for us entered, even
Jesus made an High Priest for ever after the order of
Melchisedec.”2117
And when,
writing to the blessed Titus about the second advent he says,
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the
great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.”2118
| 2118 Titus ii. 13. Cf. note on page
319 on the passage Ephes. v. 5. Here, however,
the position of the article is in favour of the interpretation
“Jesus Christ, the great God and our Saviour” which was
generally adopted by the Greek orthodox Fathers in their controversy
with the Arians and by the majority of ancient and modern commentators.
But see Alford ad loc. for such arguments as may be adduced in
favour of taking σωτήρ as
anarthrous like Θεός | And to the Thessalonians he wrote in
similar terms “For they themselves show of us what manner of
entering in we had unto you, and how we turned to God from idols to
serve the living and true God; and to wait for His Son from heaven,
whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the
wrath to come.”2119
And again
“And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward
another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: to the end he
may stablish your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our
Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his
saints.”2120
And again when
writing to the same a second time he says, “Now we beseech you,
brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering
together unto him.”2121
And a little
further on when predicting the destruction of antichrist he adds,
“Whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and
shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.”2122
And when exhorting the Romans to concord
he says, “But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou
set at naught thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment
seat of Christ. For it is written, as I live, saith the Lord, every
knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”2123
And the Lord Himself when announcing His
second advent besides other things says too this “Then if any man
shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For
as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the
west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.”2124
And after the immortality and
incorruptibility of His body He called Himself Son of Man, naming
Himself from the nature which was seen, inasmuch as the divine nature
is indeed invisible to angels, as the Lord Himself had said “No
one hath seen God at any time.”2125
| 2125 John i. 18. The “no
man” of A.V. does not admit of Theodoret’s
argument. |
And to the great Moses He said “There shall no man see me and
live.”2126
The words “Henceforth know we no man after the flesh; yea,
though we have known Christ after the flesh; yet now henceforth know we
Him no more,”2127
were not
written by the divine Apostle in order to annul the assumed nature, but
for the confirmation of our own future incorruption, immortality, and
spiritual life.
The Apostle therefore continues
“Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old
things are passed away; behold all things are become new.”2128
He speaks of what is to be in the
future as though it had already come to pass. We have not yet been
gifted with immortality, but we shall be; and when so gifted we shall
not become bodiless, but we shall put on immortality. “For”
says the divine Apostle, “we would not be unclothed, but clothed
upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.”2129
And again “For this corruptible
must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on
immortality.”2130
Thus he did not
speak of the Lord as bodiless, but taught us to believe that even the
visible nature is incorruptible, and glorified with the divine glory.
This instruction he has given us yet more clearly in the Epistle to the
Philippians; “For our conversation” he writes “is in
heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus
Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like
unto his glorious body.”2131
By these words
he teaches us distinctly that the body of the Lord is a body, but a
divine body, and glorified with the divine glory.
Let us, then, not shun the name
whereby we enjoy salvation, and whereby all things are made new, as
says our teacher himself in his Epistle to the
Ephesians,—“According to His good pleasure which He hath
purposed in Himself; that in the dispensation of the fulness of time He
might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in
heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him.”2132
Let us rather learn from this blessed
language how we are bound to glorify our benefactor, by connecting the
name of Christ with our God and Father. In his Epistle to the Romans
the Apostle says “my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ,
according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since
the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the
prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made
known to all nations for the obedience of faith; to God only will be
glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.”2133
Writing to the Ephesians he thus gives
praise—“Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that
worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus
throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”2134
And a little before he says, “For
this cause I bow my knee unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.”2135
And considerably farther on he says
“Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”2136
And when he requites with benediction
the liberality of the Philippians he says “But my God shall
supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ
Jesus.”2137
And for the
Hebrews he prayed, “Now the God of peace, that brought again from
the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of the sheep,
through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in
every good work, to do His will, working in you that which is well
pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever
and ever. Amen.”2138
And not only
when glorifying, but also when exhorting and protesting, the Apostle
conjoins the Christ with God the Father. To the blessed Timothy he
exclaims “I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus
Christ.”2139
And again
“I give thee charge in the sight of God who quickeneth all
things, and before Jesus Christ, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a
good confession; that thou keep this commandment without spot,
unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ; which in His
times He shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of
kings and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the
light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can
see; to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.”2140
These are the lessons we have
learnt from the divine Apostles; this is the teaching given us by John
and Matthew, those mighty rivers of the gospel message. The latter says
“The book of the generation of Jesus Christ the son of David, the
son of Abraham;”2141
and the former
when he shewed the things which were before the ages wrote, “In
the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was
God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by
Him.”2142
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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