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| Book XI
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Book
XI.
1. The Apostle in
his letter to the Ephesians, reviewing in its manifold aspects the full
and perfect mystery of the Gospel, mingles with other instructions in
the knowledge of God the following: As ye also were called in
one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and
Father of all, and through all, and in us all1224
. He does not leave us in the vague
and misleading paths of an indefinite teaching, or abandon us to the
shifting fancies of imagination, but limits the unimpeded license of
intellect and desire by the appointment of restraining barriers.
He gives us no opportunity to be wise beyond what he preached, but
defines in exact and precise language the faith fixed for all time,
that there may be no excuse for instability of belief. He
declares one faith, as he preaches one Lord, and pronounces one
baptism, as he declares one faith of one Lord, that as there is one
faith of one Lord, so there may be one baptism of one faith in one
Lord. And since the whole mystery of the baptism and the faith is
not only in one Lord, but also in one God, he completes the
consummation of our hope by the confession of one God. The one
baptism and the one faith are of one God, as they are of one
Lord. Lord and God are each one, not by union of person but by
distinction of properties: for, on the one hand, it is the
property of Each to be one, whether of the Father in His Fatherhood, or
of the Son in His Sonship, and on the other hand, that property of
individuality, which Each possesses, constitutes for Each the mystery
of His union with the Other. Thus the one Lord Christ cannot take
away from God the Father His Lordship, or the one God the Father deny
to the one Lord Christ His Godhead. If, because God is one,
Christ is not also by nature divine, then we cannot allow that the one
God is Lord, because there is one Lord Christ: that is, on the
supposition that by their oneness’ is signified not the mystery,
but an exclusive unity. So there is one baptism and one faith of
one Lord, as of one God.
2. But how can it be any longer one faith,
if it does not steadfastly and sincerely confess one Lord and one God
the Father: and how can the faith which is not one faith confess
one Lord and one God the Father? Further, how can the faith be
one, when its preachers are so at variance? One comes teaching
that the Lord Jesus Christ, being in the weakness of our nature,
groaned with anguish when the nails pierced His hands, that He lost the
virtue of His own power and nature, and shrank shuddering from the
death which threatened Him. Another even denies the cardinal
doctrine of the Generation and pronounces Him a creature. Another
will call Him, but not think Him, God on the ground that religion
allows us to speak of more Gods than One, but He, Whom we recognise as
God, must be conscious of sharing the divine nature1225
| 1225 The text is very
corrupt here, but the meaning seems to be that, while we have the
authority of the Bible to speak of God, if we do not attach its full
meaning to the word (e.g. Psalm lxxxii. 6, “I have said, ‘Ye are
Gods,’”), yet if we use the name in its proper significance
it is blasphemous to call Christ God. The reading of the earlier
editions and some mss., ‘duos dici
irreligiosum est, et Deum non intelligi,’ is probably a gloss to
soften the difficulty. | . Again, how can Christ the Lord be
one, when some say that as God He feels no pain, others make Him weak
and fearful: to some He is God in name, to others God in
nature: to some the Son by Generation, to others the Son by
appellation? And if this is so, how can God the Father be one in
the faith, when to some He is Father by His authority, to others Father
by generation, in the sense that God is Father of the
universe?
And yet, who will deny that whatever is not the
one faith, is not faith at all? For in the one faith there is one
Lord Christ, and God the Father is one. But the one Lord Jesus
Christ is not one in the truth of the confession, as well as in name,
unless He is Son, unless He is God1226
| 1226 Reading ‘unus
est, si filius sit, si Deus sit.’ | , unless He
is unchangeable, unless His Sonship and His Godhead have been eternally
present in Him. He who preaches Christ other than He is, that is,
other than Son and God, preaches another Christ. Nor is he in the
one faith of the one baptism, for in the teaching of the Apostle the
one faith is the faith of that one baptism, in which the one Lord is
Christ, the Son of God Who is also God.
3. Yet it cannot be denied that Christ was
Christ. It cannot be that He was incognisable to mankind.
The books of the prophets have set their seal upon Him: the
fulness of the times, which waxes
daily, witnesses of Him: by the working of wonders the tombs of
Apostles and Martyrs proclaim Him: the power of His name reveals
Him: the unclean spirits confess Him, and the devils howling in
their torment call aloud His name. In all we see the dispensation
of His power. But our faith must preach Him as He is, namely, one
Lord not in name but in confession, in one faith of one baptism:
for on our faith in one Lord Christ depends our confession of one God
the Father.
4. But these teachers of a new Christ, who deny to
Him all that is His, preach another Lord Christ as well as another God
the Father. The One is not the Begetter but the Creator, the
Other not begotten, but created. Christ is therefore not very
God, because He is not God by birth, and faith cannot recognise a
Father in God, because there is no generation to constitute Him
Father. They glorify God the Father indeed, as is His right and
due, when they predicate of Him a nature unapproachable, invisible,
inviolable, ineffable, and infinite, endued with omniscience and
omnipotence, instinct with love, moving in all and permeating all,
immanent and transcendent, sentient in all sentient existence.
But when they proceed to ascribe to Him the unique glory of being alone
good, alone omnipotent, alone immortal, who does not feel that this
pious praise aims to exclude the Lord Jesus Christ from the
blessedness, which by the reservation ‘alone’ is restricted
to the glory of God? Does it not leave Christ in sinfulness and
weakness and death, while the Father reigns in solitary
perfection? Does it not deny in Christ a natural origin from God
the Father, in the fear lest He should be thought to inherit by a
birth, which bestows upon the Begotten the same virtue of nature as the
Begetter, a blessedness natural to God the Father alone?
5. Unlearned in the teaching of the Gospels
and Apostles, they extol the glory of God the Father, not, however,
with the sincerity of a devout believer, but with the cunning of
impiety, to wrest from it an argument for their wicked heresy.
Nothing, they say, can be compared with His nature: therefore the
Only-begotten God is excluded from the comparison, because He possesses
a lower and weaker nature. And this they say of God, the living
image of the living God, the perfect form of His blessed nature, the
only-begotten offspring of His unbegotten substance; Who is not truly
the image of God unless He possesses the perfect glory of the
Father’s blessedness: and reproduces in its exactitude the
likeness of His whole nature. But if the Only-begotten God is the
image of the Unbegotten God, the verity of that perfect and supreme
nature resides in Him and makes Him the image of the very God. Is
the Father omnipotent? The weak Son is not the image of
omnipotence. Is He good? The Son, Whose divinity is of a
lower stamp, does not reflect in His sinful nature the image of
goodness. Is He incorporeal? The Son, Whose very spirit is
confined to the limits of a body, is not in the form of the
Incorporeal. Is He ineffable? The Son, Whom language can
define, Whose nature the tongue can describe, is not the image of the
Ineffable. Is He the true God? The Son possesses only a
fictitious divinity, and the false cannot be the image of the
True. The Apostle, however, does not ascribe to Christ a portion
of the image, or a part of the form, but pronounces Him unreservedly
the image of the invisible God and the form of God1227
. And how could He declare more
expressly the divine nature of the Son of God, than by saying that
Christ is the image of the invisible God even in respect of His
invisibility: for if the substance of Christ were discernible how
could He be the image of an invisible nature?
6. But, as we pointed out in the former
books, they seize the Dispensation of the assumed manhood as a pretext
to dishonour His divinity, and distort the Mystery of our salvation
into an occasion of blasphemy. Had they held fast the faith of
the Apostle, they would neither have forgotten that He, Who was in the
form of God, took the form of a servant, nor made use of the
servant’s form to dishonour the form of God (for the form of God
includes the fulness of divinity), but they would have noted,
reasonably and reverently, the distinction of occasions1228
and mysteries, without dishonouring the
divinity, or being misled by the Incarnation of Christ. But now,
when we have, I am convinced, proved everything to the utmost, and
pointed out the power of the divine nature underlying the birth of the
assumed body, there is no longer room for doubt. He Who was at
once man and the Only-begotten God performed all things by the power of
God, and in the power of God accomplished all things through a true
human nature. As begotten of God He possessed the nature of
divine omnipotence, as born of the Virgin He had a perfect and entire
humanity. Though He had a real body, He subsisted in the nature
of God, and though He subsisted in the nature of God, He abode in a
real body.
7. In our
reply we have followed Him to the moment of His glorious death, and
taking one by one the statements of their unhallowed doctrine, we have
refuted them from the teaching of the Gospels and the Apostle.
But even after His glorious resurrection there are certain things which
they have made bold to construe as proofs of the weakness of a lower
nature, and to these we must now reply. Let us adopt once more
our usual method of drawing out from the words themselves their true
signification, that so we may discover the truth precisely where they
think to overthrow it. For the Lord spoke in simple words for our
instruction in the faith, and His words cannot need support or comment
from foreign and irrelevant sayings.
8. Among their other sins the heretics often
employ as an argument the words of the Lord, I ascend unto My Father
and your Father, and My God and your God1229
. His Father is also their Father,
His God their God; therefore He is not in the nature of God, for He
pronounces God the Father of others as of Himself, and His unique
Sonship ceases when He shares with others the nature and the origin
which make Him Son and God. But let them add further the words of
the Apostle, But when He saith All things are put in subjection, He
is excepted Who did subject all things unto Him. And when all
things have been subjected unto Him, then shall He Himself be subjected
unto Him that did subject all things unto Himself, that God may be all
in all1230
, whereby, since
they regard that subjection as a proof of weakness, they may dispossess
Him of the virtue of His Father’s nature, because His natural
infirmity subjected Him to the dominion of a stronger nature. And
after that, let them adopt their very strongest position and their
impregnable defence, before which the truth of the Divine birth is to
be demolished; namely, that if He is subjected, He is not God; if His
God and Father is ours also, He shares all in common with creatures,
and therefore is Himself also a creature: created of God and not
begotten, since the creature has its substance out of nothing, but the
begotten possesses the nature of its author.
9. Falsehood is always infamous, for the
liar throwing off the bridle of shame dares to gainsay the truth, or
else at times he hides behind some veil of pretext, that he may appear
to defend with modesty what is shameless in intention. But in
this case, when they sacrilegiously use the Scriptures to degrade the
dignity of our Lord, there is no room for the blush or the false
excuse; for there are occasions when even pardon accorded to ignorance
is refused, and wilful misconstruction is exposed in its naked
profanity. Let us postpone for a moment the exposition of this
passage in the Gospel, and ask them first whether they have forgotten
the preaching of the Apostle, who said, Without controversy great is
the mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, justified
in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed on
in the world, received up in glory1231
. Who is so dull that he cannot
comprehend that the mystery of godliness is simply the Dispensation of
the flesh assumed by the Lord? At the outset then, he who does
not agree in this confession is not in the faith of God. For the
Apostle leaves no doubt that all must confess that the hidden secret of
our salvation is not the dishonour of God, but the mystery of great
godliness, and a mystery no longer kept from our eyes, but manifested
in the flesh; no longer weak through the nature of flesh, but justified
in the Spirit. And so by the justification of the Spirit is
removed from our faith the idea of fleshly weakness; through the
manifestation of the flesh is revealed that which was secret, and in
the unknown cause of that which was secret is contained the only
confession, the confession of the mystery of great godliness.
This is the whole system of the faith set forth by the Apostle in its
proper order. From godliness proceeds the mystery, from the
mystery the manifestation in the flesh, from the manifestation in the
flesh the justification in the Spirit: for the mystery of
godliness which was manifested in the flesh, to be truly a mystery, was
manifested in the flesh through the justification of the Spirit.
Again, we must not forget what manner of justification in the Spirit is
this manifestation in the flesh: for the mystery which was
manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels,
preached among the nations, and believed on in this world, this same
mystery was received up in glory. Thus is it in every way a
mystery of great godliness, when it is manifested in the flesh, when it
is justified in the Spirit, when it is seen of angels, when it is
preached among the nations, when it is believed on in the world, and
when it is received up in glory. The preaching follows the
seeing, and the believing the preaching, and the consummation of all is
the receiving up in glory: for the assumption into glory is the
mystery of great godliness, and by faith in the Dispensation we are
prepared to be received up, and to be conformed to the glory of the
Lord. The assumption of flesh is therefore also the mystery of great godliness,
for through the assumption of flesh the mystery was manifested in the
flesh. But we must believe that the manifestation in the flesh
also is this same mystery of great godliness, for His manifestation in
the flesh is His justification in the Spirit, and His assumption into
glory. And now what room does our faith leave for any to think
that the secret of the Dispensation of godliness is the enfeebling of
the divinity, when through the assumption of glory is to be confessed
the mystery of great godliness? What was ‘infirmity’
is now the ‘mystery:’ what was
‘necessity’ becomes ‘godliness1232
.’ And now let us turn to the
meaning of the Evangelist’s words, that the secret of our
salvation and our glory may not be converted into an occasion of
blasphemy.
10. You credit with the weight of
irresistible authority, heretic, that saying of the Lord, I ascend
to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God1233
. The same Father, you say, is His
Father and ours, the same God His God and ours. He partakes,
therefore, of our weakness, for in the possession of the same Father we
are not inferior as sons, and in the service of the same God we are
equal as servants. Since, then, we are of created origin and a
servant’s nature, but have a common Father and God with Him, He
is in common with our nature a creature and a servant. So runs
this infatuated and unhallowed teaching. It produces also the
words of the Prophet, Thy God hath anointed Thee, O God, to
prove that Christ does not partake of that glorious nature which
belongs to God, since the God Who anoints Him is preferred before Him
as His God1234
.
11. We do not know Christ the God unless we
know God the Begotten. But to be born God is to belong to the
nature of God, for the name Begotten signifies indeed the manner of His
origin, but does not make Him different in kind from the
Begetter. And if so, the Begotten owes indeed to His Author the
source of His being, but is not dispossessed of the nature of that
Author, for the birth of God can arise but from one origin, and have
but one nature. If its origin is not from God, it is not a birth;
if it is anything but a birth, Christ is not God. But He
is God of God, and therefore God the Father stands to God the
Son as God of His birth and Father of His nature, for the birth of God
is from God, and in the specific nature of God.
12. See in all that He said, how carefully
the Lord tempers the pious acknowledgment of His debt, so that neither
the confession of the birth could be held to reflect upon His divinity,
nor His reverent obedience to infringe upon His sovereign nature.
He does not withhold the homage due from Him as the Begotten, Who owed
to His Author His very existence, but He manifests by His confident
bearing the consciousness of participation in that nature, which
belongs to Him by virtue of the origin whereby He was born as
God. Take, for instance, the words, He that hath seen Me, hath
seen the Father also1235
, and, The
words that I say, I speak not from Myself1236
. He does not speak from
Himself: therefore He receives from His Author that which He
says. But if any have seen Him, they have seen the Father
also: they are conscious, by this evidence, given to shew that
God is in Him, that a nature, one in kind with that of God, was born
from God to subsist as God. Take again the words, That which
the Father hath given unto Me, is greater than all1237
, and, I and the Father are
one1238
. To say
that the Father gave, is a confession that He received His
origin: but the unity of Himself with the Father is a property of
His nature derived from that origin. Take another instance, He
hath given all judgment unto the Son, that all may honour the Son even
as they honour the Father1239
. He
acknowledges that the judgment is given to Him, and therefore He does
not put His birth in the background: but He claims equal honour
with the Father, and therefore He does not resign His nature. Yet
another example, I am in the Father, and the Father is in
Me1240
| 1240 Ib. xiv. 11; cf. x. 38. | , and, The
Father is greater than I1241
. The One is
in the Other: recognise, then, the divinity of God, the Begotten
of God: the Father is greater than He: perceive, then, His
acknowledgment of the Father’s authority. In the same way
He says, The Son can do nothing of Himself but what He hath seen the
Father doing: for what things soever He doeth, these the Son also
doeth in like manner1242
. He doeth
nothing of Himself: that is, in accordance with His birth the
Father prompts His actions: yet what things soever the Father
doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner; that is, He subsists as
nothing less than God, and by the Father’s omnipotent nature
residing in Him, can do all that God the Father does. All is
uttered in agreement with His unity of Spirit with the Father, and the
properties of that nature, which He possesses by virtue of His
birth. That birth, which brought Him into being, constituted Him
divine, and His being reveals the consciousness of that divine
nature. God the Son confesses God His Father, because He was born
of Him; but also, because He was born, He inherits the whole nature of
God.
13. So the Dispensation of the great and godly
mystery makes Him, Who was already Father of the divine Son, also His
Lord in the created form which He assumed, for He, Who was in the form
of God, was found also in the form of a servant. Yet He was not a
servant, for according to the Spirit He was God the Son of God.
Every one will agree also that there is no servant where there is no
lord. God is indeed Father in the Generation of the Only-begotten
God, but only in the case that the Other is a servant can we call Him
Lord as well as Father. The Son was not at the first a servant by
nature, but afterwards began to be by nature something which He was not
before. Thus the Father is Lord on the same grounds as the Son is
servant. By the Dispensation of His nature the Son had a Lord,
when He made Himself a servant by the assumption of manhood.
14. Being, then, in the form of a servant,
Jesus Christ, Who before was in the form of God, said as a man, I
ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.
He was speaking as a servant to servants: how can we then
dissociate the words from Christ the servant, and transfer them to that
nature, which had nothing of the servant in it? For He Who abode
in the form of God took upon Him the form of a servant, this form being
the indispensable condition of His fellowship as a servant with
servants. It is in this sense that God is His Father and the
Father of men, His God and the God of servants. Jesus Christ was
speaking as a man in the form of a servant to men and servants; what
difficulty is there then in the idea, that in His human aspect the
Father is His Father as ours, in His servant’s nature God is His
God as all men’s?
15. These, then, are the words with which He
prefaces the message, Go unto My brethren, and say to them, I ascend
unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God. I
ask, Are they to be understood as His brethren with reference to the
form of God or to the form of a servant? And has our flesh
kinship with Him in regard to the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in
Him, that we should be reckoned His brothers in respect of His
divinity? No, for the Spirit of prophecy recognises clearly in
what respect we are the brethren of the Only-begotten God. It is
as a worm and no man1243
that He says,
I will declare Thy name unto My brethren1244
. As a worm, which is born without
the ordinary process of conception, or else comes up into the world,
already living, from the depths of the earth, He speaks here in
manifestation of the fact that He had assumed flesh and also brought it
up, living, from Hades. Throughout the Psalm He is foretelling by
the Spirit of prophecy the mysteries of His Passion: it is
therefore in respect of the Dispensation, in which He suffered, that He
has brethren. The Apostle also recognises the mystery of this
brotherhood, for he calls Him not only the firstborn from the
dead1245
, but also the firstborn among many
brethren1246
. Christ is
the Firstborn among many brethren in the same sense in which He is
Firstborn from the dead: and as the mystery of death concerns His
body, so the mystery of brotherhood also refers to His flesh.
Thus God has brethren according to His flesh, for the Word became flesh
and dwelt amongst us1247
: but the
Only-begotten Son, unique as the Only-begotten, has no
brethren.
16. By assuming flesh, however, He acquired our
nature in our totality, and became all that we are, but did not lose
that which He was before. Both before by His heavenly origin, and
now by His earthly constitution, God is His Father. By His
earthly constitution God is His Father, since all things are from God
the Father, and God is Father to all things, since from Him and in Him
are all things. But to the Only-begotten God, God is Father, not
only because the Word became flesh; His Fatherhood extends also to Him
Who was, as God the Word, with God in the beginning. Thus, when
the Word became flesh, God was His Father both by the birth of God the
Word, and by the constitution of His flesh: for God is the Father
of all flesh, though not in the same way that He is Father to God the
Word. But God the Word, though He did not cease to be God, really
did become flesh: and while He thus dwelt He was still truly the
Word, just as when the Word became flesh He was still truly God as well
as man. For to ‘dwell’ can only be said of one who
abides in something: and to become flesh of one who is
born. He dwelt among us; that is, He assumed our flesh. The
Word became flesh and dwelt among us; that is, He was God in the
reality of our body. If Christ Jesus, the man according to the
flesh, robbed God the Word of the divine nature, or was not according to the mystery of godliness
also God the Word, then it reduces His nature to our level that God is
His Father, and our Father, His God and our God. But if God the
Word, when He became the man Christ Jesus, did not cease to be God the
Word, then God is at the same time His Father and ours, His God and
ours, only in respect of that nature, by which the Word is our brother,
and the message to His brethren, I ascend unto My Father and your
Father, and My God and your God, is not that of the Only-begotten
God the Word, but of the Word made flesh.
17. The Apostle here speaks in carefully
guarded words, which by their definiteness can give no occasion to the
ungodly. We have seen that the Evangelist makes the Lord use the
word ‘Brethren’ in the preface to the message, thus
signifying that the whole message, being addressed to His brethren,
refers to His fellowship in that nature which makes Him their
brother. Thus he makes manifest that the mystery of godliness,
which is here proclaimed, is no degradation of His divinity. The
community with Him, by which God is our Father and His, our God and
His, exists in regard to the Dispensation of the flesh: we are
counted His brethren, because He was born into the body. No one
disputes that God the Father is also the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but this reverent confession offers no occasion for irreverence.
God is His God but not as possessing a different order of divinity from
His. He was begotten God of the Father, and born a servant by the
Dispensation: and so God is His Father because He is God of God,
and God is His God, because He is flesh of the Virgin. All this
the Apostle confirms in one short and decisive sentence, Making
mention of you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and
revelation1248
. When he
speaks of Him as Jesus Christ, he mentions His God: when his
theme is the glory of Christ, he calls God His Father. To Christ,
as having glory, God is Father: to Christ, as being Jesus, God is
God. For the angel, when speaking of Christ the Lord, Who should
be born of Mary, calls Him by the name ‘Jesus1249
:’ but to the prophets Christ
the Lord is ‘Spirit1250
.’ The
Apostle’s words in this passage seem to many, on account of the
Latin, somewhat obscure, for Latin has no articles, which the beautiful
and logical usage of Greek employs. The Greek runs,
ὁ Θεὸς τοῦ
Κυρίου ἡμῶν
᾽Ιησοῦ
Χριστοῦ, ὁ
πατὴρ τῆς
δόξης, which we might translate into
Latin, if the usage of the article were permitted, ‘Ille Deus
illius Domini nostri Jesu Christi, ille pater illius
claritatis’ (The God of the Lord [of us] Jesus Christ, the
Father of the glory). In this form ‘The God of
the Jesus Christ,’ and ‘the Father of
the glory,’ the sentence expresses, so far as we can
comprehend them, certain truths of His nature. Where the glory of
Christ is concerned, God is His Father; where Christ is Jesus, there
the Father is His God. In the Dispensation by which He is a
servant, He has as God Him Whom, in the glory by which He is God, He
has as Father.
18. Time and the lapse of ages make no
difference to a Spirit1251
| 1251 By
‘Spirit’ Hilary means God considered as a spiritual (as
opposed to a material) Being: cf. in the previous chapter,
“to the prophets Christ the Lord is
‘Spirit.’” | . Christ is
one and the same Christ, whether in the body, or abiding by the Spirit
in the prophets. Speaking through the mouth of the holy Patriarch
David, He says, Thy God, O God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of
gladness above Thy fellows1252
, which refers to
no less a mystery than the Dispensation of His assumption of
flesh. He, Who now sends the message to His brethren that their
Father is His Father, and their God His God, announced Himself then as
anointed by His God above His fellows. No one is fellow to the
Only-begotten Christ, God the Word: but we know that we are His fellows
by the assumption which made Him flesh. That anointing did not
exalt the blessed and incorruptible Begotten Who abides in the nature
of God, but it established the mystery of His body, and sanctified the
manhood which He assumed. To this the Apostle Peter witnesses,
Of a truth in this city were they gathered together against Thy holy
Son Jesus, Whom Thou didst anoint1253
: and on another occasion, Ye
know that the saying was published through all Judæa, beginning
from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached: even Jesus
of Nazareth, how that God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost and with
power1254
. Jesus was
anointed, therefore, that the mystery of the regeneration of flesh
might be accomplished. Nor are we left in doubt how He was thus
anointed with the Spirit of God and with power, when we listen to the
Father’s voice, as it spoke when He came up out of the Jordan,
Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee1255
| 1255 Ps. ii. 7. The last words occur in neither
in St. Matt. (iii. 17), nor St. Mark (i. 11), nor
St. Luke (iii. 22) : but there is evidence of the
existence of such a reading. See Tischendorf, Nov. Test.
Græc., on St. Matt. iii. 17, and St. Luke iii. 22. | . Thus is testified the sanctification
of His flesh, and in this testimony we must recognise His anointing
with the power of the Spirit.
19. But
the Word was God, and with God in the beginning, and therefore the
anointing could neither be related nor explained, if it referred to
that nature, of which we are told nothing, except that it was in the
beginning. And in fact He Who was God had no need to anoint
Himself with the Spirit and power of God, when He was Himself the
Spirit and power of God. So He, being God, was anointed by His
God above His fellows. And, although there were many
Christs (i.e. anointed persons) according to the Law before the
Dispensation of the flesh, yet Christ, Who was anointed above His
fellows, came after them, for He was preferred above His
anointed fellows. Accordingly, the words of the prophecy bring
out the fact that the anointing took place in time, and comparatively
late in time. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated
iniquity: therefore Thy God, O God, hath anointed Thee with the
oil of gladness above Thy fellows. Now, a fact which follows
later upon other facts, cannot be dated before them. That a
reward be deserved postulates as a prior condition the existence of one
who can deserve it, for merit earned implies that there has been one
capable of acquiring it. If, therefore, we attribute the birth of
the Only-begotten God to this anointing, which is His reward for loving
righteousness and hating iniquity, we shall be regarding Him not as
born, but as promoted by unction, to be the Only-begotten God.
But then we imply that He advanced with gradual progress and promotion
to perfect divinity, and that He was not born God, but afterwards for
His merit anointed God. Thus we shall make Christ as God Himself
conditioned, whereas He is the final cause of all conditions; and what
becomes then of the Apostle’s words, All things are through
Him and in Him, and He is before all, and in Him all things
consist1256
? The
Lord Jesus Christ was not deified because of anything, or by means of
anything, but was born God: God by origin, not promoted to
divinity for any cause after His birth, but as the Son; and one in kind
with God because begotten of Him. His anointing then, though it
is the result of a cause, did not enhance that in Him, which could not
be made more perfect. It concerned that part of Him which was to
be made perfect through the perfection of the Mystery: that is,
our manhood was sanctified in Christ by unction. If then the
prophet here also teaches us the dispensation of the servant, for which
Christ is anointed by His God above His fellows, and that because He
loved righteousness and hated iniquity, then surely the words of the
prophet must refer to that nature in Christ, by which He has fellows
through His assumption of flesh. Can we doubt this when we note
how carefully the Spirit of prophecy chooses His words? God is
anointed by His God; that is, in His own nature He is God, but in the
dispensation of the anointing God is His God. God is
anointed: but tell me, is that Word anointed, Who was God in the
beginning? Manifestly not, for the anointing comes after His
divine birth. It was then not the begotten Word, God with God in
the beginning, Who was anointed, but that nature in God which came to
Him through the dispensation later than His divinity1257
| 1257 Reading
‘quam’ instead of quâ. | : and when His God anointed Him, He
anointed in Him the whole nature of the servant, which He assumed in
the mystery of His flesh.
20. Let no one then defile with his godless
interpretations the mystery of great godliness which was manifested in
the flesh, or reckon himself equal to the Only-begotten in respect of
His divine substance. Let Him be our brother and our fellow,
inasmuch as the Word made flesh dwelt among us, inasmuch as the man
Jesus Christ is Mediator between God and man. Let Him, after the
manner of servants, have a common Father and a common God with us, and
as anointed above His fellows, let Him be of the same nature as His
anointed fellows, though His be an unction of special privilege.
In the mystery of the Mediatorship let Him be at once very man and very
God, Himself God of God, but having a common Father and God with us in
that community by which He is our brother.
21. But perhaps that subjection, that delivering
of the kingdom, and lastly that end betoken the dissolution of His
nature, or the loss of His power, or the enfeebling of His
divinity. Many argue thus: Christ is included in the common
subjection of all to God, and by the condition of subjection loses His
divinity: He surrenders His Kingdom, therefore He is no longer
King: the end which overtakes Him entails as its consequence the
loss of His power.
22. It will not be out of place here if we
review the full meaning of the Apostle’s teaching upon this
subject. Let us take, then, each single sentence and expound it,
that we may grasp the entire Mystery by comprehending it in its
fulness. The words of the Apostle are, For since by man came
death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For
as in Adam all die, so also in Christ are all made alive. But
each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then they that are
Christ’s at His coming. Then cometh the end, when He shall
have delivered the Kingdom to God, even the Father, when He shall have
emptied all authority and all power. For He must reign until He
put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be
conquered is death. But when He saith, All things are put in
subjection, He is excepted Who did subject all things unto Him.
But when all things have been subjected to Him, then shall He also
Himself be subjected to Him, that did subject all things unto Him, that
God may be all in all1258
.
23. The Apostle who was chosen not of men
nor through man, but through Jesus Christ, to be the teacher of the
Gentiles1259
, expounds in
language as express as he can command the secrets of the heavenly
Dispensations. He who had been caught up into the third heaven
and had heard unspeakable words1260
, reveals to
the perception of human understanding as much as human nature can
receive. But he does not forget that there are things which
cannot be understood in the moment of hearing. The infirmity of
man needs time to review before the true and perfect tribunal of the
mind, that which is poured indiscriminately into the ears.
Comprehension follows the spoken words more slowly than hearing, for it
is the ear which hears, but the reason which understands, though it is
God Who reveals the inner meaning to those who seek it. We learn
this from the words written among many other exhortations to Timothy,
the disciple instructed from a babe in the Holy Scriptures by the
glorious faith of his grandmother and mother1261
: Understand what I say, for the
Lord shall give thee understanding in all things1262
. The exhortation to understand is
prompted by the difficulty of understanding. But God’s gift
of understanding is the reward of faith, for through faith the
infirmity of sense is recompensed with the gift of revelation.
Timothy, that ‘man of God’ as the Apostle witnesses of
him1263
, Paul’s true child in the
faith1264
, is exhorted to understand because the
Lord will give him understanding in all things: let us,
therefore, knowing that the Lord will grant us understanding in all
things, remember that the Apostle exhorts us also to
understand.
24. And if, by an error incident to human
nature, we be clinging to some preconception of our own, let us not
reject the advance in knowledge through the gift of revelation.
If we have hitherto used only our own judgment, let that not make us
ashamed to change its decisions for the better. Guiding this
advance wisely and carefully, the same blessed Apostle writes to the
Philippians, Let us therefore as many as be perfect, be thus
minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, this also
shall God reveal unto you. Only, wherein we have hastened, in
that same let us walk1265
. Reason
cannot anticipate with preconceptions the revelation of God. For
the Apostle has here shewn us wherein consists the wisdom of those who
have the perfect wisdom, and for those who are otherwise minded, he
awaits the revelation of God, that they may obtain the perfect
wisdom. If any, then, have otherwise conceived this profound
dispensation of the hidden knowledge, and if that which we offer them
is in any respect more right or better approved, let them not be
ashamed to receive the perfect wisdom, as the Apostle advises, through
the revelation of God, and if they hate to abide in untruth let them
not love ignorance more. If to them, who had another wisdom, God
has revealed this also, the Apostle exhorts them to hasten on the road
in which they have started, to cast aside the notions of their former
ignorance, and obtain the revelation of perfect understanding by the
path into which they have eagerly entered. Let us, therefore,
keep on in the path along which we have hastened: or, if the
error of our wandering steps has delayed our eager haste, let us,
notwithstanding, start again through the revelation of God towards the
goal of our desire, and not turn our feet from the path. We have
hastened towards Christ Jesus the Lord of Glory, the King of the
eternal ages, in Whom are restored all things in Heaven and in earth,
by Whom all things consist, in Whom and with Whom we shall abide for
ever. So long as we walk in this path we have the perfect
wisdom: and if we have another wisdom, God will reveal to us what
is the perfect wisdom. Let us, then, examine in the light of the
Apostle’s faith the mystery of the words before us: and let
our treatment be, as it always has been, a refutation from the actual
truth of the Apostle’s confession of every interpretation, which
they would profanely foist upon his words.
25. Three assertions are here disputed, which, in
the order in which the Apostle makes them, are first the end, then the
delivering, and lastly the subjection. The object is to prove
that Christ ceases to exist at the end, that He loses His kingdom, when He
delivers it up, that He strips Himself of the divine nature, when He is
subjected to God.
26. At the outset take note that this is not the
order of the Apostle’s teaching, for in that order the surrender
of the Kingdom is first, then the subjection, and lastly the end.
But every cause is itself the result of its particular cause, so that,
in every chain of causation, each cause, itself producing a result, has
inevitably its underlying antecedent. Thus the end will come, but
when He has delivered the Kingdom to God. He will deliver the
Kingdom, but when He has abolished all authority and power. He
will abolish all authority and power, because He must reign. He
will reign until He has put all enemies under His feet. He will
put all enemies under His feet, because God has subjected everything
under His feet. God has so subjected them as to make death the
last enemy to be conquered by Him. Then, when all things are
subjected unto God, except Him Who subjected all things unto Him, He
too will be subjected unto Him, Who subjects all to Himself. But
the cause of the subjection is none other than that God may be all in
all; and therefore the end is that God is all in all.
27. Before going any further we must now enquire
whether the end is a dissolution, or the delivering a forfeiture, or
the subjection an enfeebling of Christ. And if we find that these
are contraries, which cannot be connected as causes and effects, we
shall be able to understand the words in the true sense in which they
were spoken.
28. Christ is the end of the
law1266
; but, tell me,
is He come to destroy it or to fulfil it? And if Christ, the end
of the law, does not destroy it, but fulfils it (as He says, I am
come not to destroy the law but fulfil it1267
), is not the end of the law, so far from
being its dissolution, the very opposite, namely its final
perfection? All things are advancing towards an end, but that end
is a condition of rest in the perfection, which is the goal of their
advance, and not their abolition. Further, all things exist for
the sake of the end, but the end itself is not the means to anything
beyond: it is an ultimate, all-embracing whole, which rests in
itself. And because it is self-contained, and works for no other
time or object than itself, the goal is always that to which our hopes
are directed. Therefore the Lord exhorts us to wait with patient
and reverent faith until the end comes: Blessed is He that
endureth to the end1268
. It is
not a blessed dissolution, which awaits us, nor is non-existence the
fruit, and annihilation the appointed reward of faith: but the
end is the final attainment of the promised blessedness, and they are
blessed who endure until the goal of perfect happiness is reached, when
the expectation of faithful hope has no object beyond. Their end
is to abide with unbroken rest in that condition, towards which they
are pressing. Similarly, as a deterrent, the Apostle warns us of
the end of the wicked, Whose end is perdition, . . . . . but our
expectation is in heaven1269
. Suppose
then we interpret the end as a dissolution, we are forced to
acknowledge that, since there is an end for the blessed and for the
wicked, the issue levels the godly with the ungodly, for the appointed
end of both is a common annihilation. What of our expectation in
heaven, if for us as well as for the wicked the end is a cessation of
being? But even if there remains for the saints an expectation,
whereas for the wicked there waits the end they have deserved, we
cannot conceive that end as a final dissolution. What punishment
would it be for the wicked to be beyond the feeling of avenging
torments, because the capability of suffering has been removed by
dissolution? The end is, therefore, a culminating and irrevocable
condition which awaits us, reserved for the blessed and prepared for
the wicked.
29. We can therefore no longer doubt that by
the end is meant an ultimate and final condition and not a
dissolution. We shall have something more to say upon this
subject, when we come to the explanation of this passage, but for the
present this is enough to make our meaning clear. Let us,
therefore, turn now to the delivering of the Kingdom, and see whether
it means a surrender of rule, whether the Son by delivering ceases to
possess that which He delivers to the Father. If this is what the
wicked contend in their unreasoning infatuation, they must allow that
the Father, by delivering, lost all, when He delivered all to the Son,
if delivery implies the surrender of that which is delivered. For
the Lord said, All things have been delivered unto Me of My
Father1270
, and again,
All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and
earth1271
. If,
therefore, to deliver is to yield possession, the Father no longer
possessed that which He delivered. But if the Father did not
cease to possess that which He delivered, neither does the Son
surrender that which He delivers. Therefore, if He did not lose
by the delivering that which He delivered, we must recognise that only
the Dispensation explains how the Father still possesses what He delivered, and
the Son does not forfeit what He gave.
30. As to the subjection, there are other
facts which come to the help of our faith, and prevent us from putting
an indignity on Christ upon this score, but above all this passage
contains its own defence. First, however, I appeal to common
reason: is the subjection still to be understood as the
subordination of servitude to lordship, weakness to power, meanness to
honour, qualities the opposite of one another? Is the Son in this
manner subjected to the Father by the distinction of a different
nature? If, indeed, we would think so, we shall find in the
Apostle’s words a preventive for such errors of the
imagination. When all things are subjected to Him, says He, then
must He be subjected to Him, Who subjects all things to Himself; and by
this ‘then’ he means to denote the temporal
Dispensation. For if we put any other construction on the
subjection, Christ, though then to be subjected, is not subjected now,
and thus we make Him an insolent and impious rebel, whom the necessity
of time, breaking as it were and subduing His profane and overweening
pride, will reduce to a tardy obedience. But what does He Himself
say? I am not come to do Mine own will, but the will of Him
that sent Me1272
: and
again, Therefore hath the Father loved Me because I do all things
that are pleasing unto Him1273
: and,
Father, Thy will be done1274
| 1274 Cf. St. Matt. xxvi. 39, 42; St. Mark xiv. 36; St.
Luke xxii. 42. | . Or
hear the Apostle, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto
death1275
. Although
He humbled Himself, His nature knew no humiliation: though He was
obedient, it was a voluntary obedience, for He became obedient by
humbling Himself. The Only-begotten God humbled Himself, and
obeyed His Father even to the death of the Cross: but as what, as
man or as God, is He to be subjected to the Father, when all things
have been subjected to Him? Of a truth this subjection is no sign
of a fresh obedience, but the Dispensation of the Mystery, for the
allegiance is eternal, the subjection an event within time. The
subjection is then in its signification simply a demonstration of the
Mystery.
31. What that is must be understood in view
of this same hope of our faith. We cannot be ignorant that the
Lord Jesus Christ rose again from the dead, and sits at the right hand
of God, for we have also the witness of the Apostle, According to
the working of the strength of His might, which He wrought in Christ,
when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand
in the heavenly places above all rule and authority and power and
dominion, and every name that is named not only in this world but also
in that which is to came, and put all things in subjection under His
feet1276
. The
language of the Apostle, as befits the power of God, speaks of the
future as already past: for that which is to be wrought by the
completion of time already exists in Christ, in Whom is all fulness,
and ‘future’ refers only to the temporal order of the
Dispensation, not to a new development. Thus, God has put all
things under His feet, though they are still to be subjected. By
their subjection, conceived as already past, is expressed the immutable
power of Christ: by their subjection, as future, is signified
their consummation at the end of the ages as the result of the fulness
of time.
32. The meaning of the abolishing of every
power which is against Him is not obscure. The prince of the air,
the power of spiritual wickedness, shall be delivered to eternal
destruction, as Christ says, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the
eternal fire which My Father hath prepared for the devil and his
angels1277
. The
abolishing is not the same as the subjecting. To abolish the
power of the enemy is to sweep away for ever his prerogative of power,
so that by the abolition of his power is brought to an end the rule of
his kingdom. Of this the Lord testifies when He says, My
kingdom is not of this world1278
:
as He had once before testified that the ruler of that kingdom is the
prince of the world, whose power shall be destroyed by the abolition of
the rule of His kingdom1279
| 1279 Ib. xvi.
11. “The prince
of this world hath been judged.” | . A
subjection, on the other hand, which implies obedience and allegiance,
is a proof of submission and mutability.
33. So when their authority is abolished,
His enemies shall be subjected: and so subjected, that He shall
subject them to Himself. Moreover He shall so subject them to
Himself, that God shall subject them to Him. Was the Apostle
ignorant, think you, of the force of these words in the Gospel, No
one cometh to Me, except the Father draw Him to Me1280
which stand side by side with those other
words, No one cometh unto the Father but by Me1281
: just as in this Epistle Christ
subjects His enemies to Himself, yet God subjects them to Him, and He
witnesses throughout this, his work of subjection, that God is working
in Him? Except through Him there is no approach to the Father,
but there is also no approach to Him, unless the Father draw
us. Understanding Him to be
the Son of God, we recognise in Him the true nature of the
Father. Hence, when we learn to know the Son, God the Father
calls us: when we believe the Son, God the Father receives us;
for our recognition and knowledge of the Father is in the Son, Who
shews us in Himself God the Father, Who draws us, if we be devout, by
His fatherly love into a mutual bond with His Son. So then the
Father draws us, when, as the first condition, He is acknowledged
Father: but no one comes to the Father except through the Son,
because we cannot know the Father, unless faith in the Son is active in
us, since we cannot approach the Father in worship, unless we first
adore the Son, while if we know the Son, the Father draws us to eternal
life and receives us. But each result is the work of the Son, for
by the preaching of the Father, Whom the Son preaches, the Father
brings us to the Son, and the Son leads us to the Father. The
statement of this Mystery was necessary for the more perfect
understanding of the present passage, to shew that through the Son the
Father draws us and receives us; that we might understand the two
aspects, the Son subjecting all to Himself, and the Father subjecting
all to Him. Through the birth the nature of God is abiding in the
Son, and does that which He Himself does. What He does God does,
but what God does in Him, He Himself does: in the sense that
where He acts Himself we must believe the Son of God acts; and where
God acts, we must perceive the properties of the Father’s nature
existing in Him as the Son.
34. When authorities and powers are
abolished, His enemies shall be subjected under His feet. The
same Apostle tells who are these enemies, As touching the Gospel
they are enemies for your sakes, but as touching the election they are
beloved for the fathers’ sake1282
. We remember that they are
enemies of the cross of Christ; let us remember also that, because they
are beloved for the fathers’ sake, they are reserved for the
subjection, as the Apostle says, I would not, brethren, have you
ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that a
hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the
Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be saved, even as it is
written, There shall come out of Sion a Deliverer, and shall turn away
ungodliness from Jacob: and this is the covenant firm Me to them,
when I have taken away their sins1283
. So His enemies shall be
subjected under His feet.
35. But we must not forget what follows the
subjection, namely, Last of all is death conquered by
Him1284
. This
victory over death is nothing else than the resurrection from the
dead: for when the corruption of death is stayed, the quickened
and now heavenly nature is made eternal, as it is written, For this
corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on
immortality. But when this mortal shall have put on immortality,
then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed
up in strife. O death, where is thy sting? O death, where
is thy strife1285
?
In the subjection of His enemies death is conquered; and, death
conquered, life immortal follows. The Apostle tells us also of
the special reward attained by this subjection which is made perfect by
the subjection of belief: Who shall fashion anew the body of
our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory,
according to the works of His power, whereby He is able to subject all
things to Himself1286
. There
is then another subjection, which consists in a transition from one
nature to another, for our nature ceases, so far as its present
character is concerned, and is subjected to Him, into Whose form it
passes. But by ‘ceasing’ is implied not an end of
being, but a promotion into something higher. Thus our nature by
being merged into the image of the other nature which it receives,
becomes subjected through the imposition of a new form.
36. Hence the Apostle, to make his
explanation of this Mystery complete, after saying that death is the
last enemy to be conquered, adds: But when He saith, All
things are put in subjection except Him, Who did subject all things to
Him, then must He be subjected to Him, that did subject all things to
Him, that God may be all in all1287
.
The first step of the Mystery is that all things are subjected to
Him: then He is subjected to Him, Who subjects all things to
Himself. As we are subjected to the glory of the rule of His
body, so He also, reigning in the glory of His body, is by the same
Mystery in turn subjected to Him, Who subjects all things to
Himself. And we are subjected to the glory of His body, that we
may share that splendour with which He reigns in the body, since we
shall be conformed to His body.
37. Nor are the Gospels silent concerning
the glory of His present reigning body. It is written that the
Lord said, Verily, I say unto you, there be some of them that stand
here, which shall not
taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in His
Kingdom. And it came to pass, after six days Jesus taketh with
Him Peter and James and John His brother, and bringeth them up into a
high mountain apart. And Jesus was transfigured before them, and
His face did shine as the sun, and His garments became as
snow.1288
| 1288 St.
Matt. xvi. 28–xvii.
2. | Thus
was shewn to the Apostles the glory of the body of Christ coming into
His Kingdom: for in the fashion of His glorious Transfiguration,
the Lord stood revealed in the splendour of His reigning body.
38. He promised also to the Apostles the
participation in this His glory. So shall it be in the end of
the world. The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they
shall gather together out of His Kingdom all things that cause
stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and He shall send them into the
furnace of fire: there shall be the weeping and gnashing of
teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the
Kingdom of their Father. He that hath ears to hear, let him
hear1289
. Were
their natural and bodily ears closed to the hearing of the words, that
the Lord should need to admonish them to hear? Yet the Lord,
hinting at the knowledge of the Mystery, commands them to listen to the
doctrine of the faith. In the end of the world all things that
cause stumbling shall be removed from His Kingdom. We see the
Lord then reigning in the splendour of His body, until the things that
cause stumbling are removed. And we see ourselves, in
consequence, conformed to the glory of His body in the Kingdom of the
Father, shining as with the splendour of the sun, the splendour in
which He shewed the fashion of His Kingdom to the Apostles, when He was
transfigured on the mountain.
39. He shall deliver the Kingdom to God the
Father, not in the sense that He resigns His power by the delivering,
but that we, being conformed to the glory of His body, shall form the
Kingdom of God. It is not said, He shall deliver up His
Kingdom, but, He shall deliver up the Kingdom1290
, that is, deliver up to God us who have
been made the Kingdom by the glorifying of His body. He shall
deliver us into the Kingdom, as it is said in the Gospel, Come, ye
blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world1291
. The just
shall shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father, and the Son
shall deliver to the Father, as His Kingdom, those whom He has called
into His Kingdom, to whom also He has promised the blessedness of this
Mystery, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God1292
. While He
reigns, He shall remove all things that cause stumbling, and then the
just shall shine as the sun in the Kingdom of the Father.
Afterwards He shall deliver the Kingdom to the Father, and those whom
He has handed to the Father, as the Kingdom, shall see God. He
Himself witnesses to the Apostles what manner of Kingdom this is:
The Kingdom of God is within you1293
. Thus it is as King that He shall
deliver up the Kingdom, and if any ask Who it is that delivers up the
Kingdom, let him hear, Christ is risen from the dead, the
firstfruits of them that sleep; since by man came death, by man came
also the resurrection of the dead1294
. All that is said on the point
before us concerns the Mystery of the body, since Christ is the
firstfruits of the dead. Let us gather also from the words of the
Apostle by what Mystery Christ rose from the dead: Remember
that Christ hath risen from the dead, of the seed of David1295
. Here he teaches that the death and
resurrection are due only to the Dispensation by which Christ was
flesh.
40. In His body, the same body though now
made glorious, He reigns until the authorities are abolished, death
conquered, and His enemies subdued. This distinction is carefully
preserved by the Apostle: the authorities and powers are
abolished, the enemies are subjected1296
. Then, when they are subjected, He,
that is the Lord, shall be subjected to Him that subjecteth all things
to Himself, that God may be all in all1297
, the nature of the Father’s
divinity imposing itself upon the nature of our body which was
assumed. It is thus that God shall be all in all: according
to the Dispensation He becomes by His Godhead and His manhood the
Mediator between men and God, and so by the Dispensation He acquires
the nature of flesh, and by the subjection shall obtain the nature of
God in all things, so as to be God not in part, but wholly and
entirely. The end of the subjection is then simply that God may
be all in all, that no trace of the nature of His earthly body may
remain in Him. Although before this time the two were combined
within Him, He must now become God only; not, however, by casting off
the body, but by translating it through subjection; not by losing it
through dissolutions, but by transfiguring it in glory: adding
humanity to His divinity, not divesting Himself of divinity by His
humanity. And He is subjected, not that He may cease to be, but
that God may be all in all, having, in the mystery of the subjection,
to continue to be that
which He no longer is1298
, not having by
dissolution to be robbed of Himself, that is, to be deprived of His
being.
41. We have a sufficient and sacred guarantee for
this belief in the authority of the Apostle. Through the
Dispensation, and within time, the Lord Jesus Christ, the firstfruits
of them that sleep, is to be subjected, that God may be all in all, and
this subjection is not the debasement of His divinity, but the
promotion of His assumed nature, for He Who is God and Man is now
altogether God. But some may think that, when we say He was both
glorified in the body whilst reigning in the body, and is hereafter to
be subjected that God may be all in all, our belief finds no support
for itself in the Gospels nor yet in the Epistles. We will,
therefore, produce testimony of our faith, not only from the words of
the Apostle, but also from our Lord’s mouth. We will shew
that Christ said first with His own lips what He afterwards said by the
mouth of Paul.
42. Does He not reveal to His Apostles the
Dispensation of this glory by the express signification of the words,
Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.
If God hath been glorified in Him, God hath glorified Him in Himself,
and straightway hath He glorified Him1299
| 1299 St. John xiii. 31, 32. There is another reading in
the text of Hilary, glorificabit, “shall glorify Him in
Himself,” and though it is not well supported by ms. authority, and in ix.
40 all the mss. agree in the perfect honorificavit, the future
is favoured by the last two sentences of this chapter. The
variation between honoured and glorified shews the
confusion of texts which preceded the Vulgate and caused it to be
welcomed. | . In the words, Now is the Son of
Man honoured, and God is honoured in Him, we have first the glory
of the Son of Man, then the glory of God in the Son of Man. So
there is first signified the glory of the body, which it borrows from
its association with the divine nature: and then follows the
promotion to a fuller glory derived from an addition to the glory of
the body. If God hath been honoured in Him, God hath honoured
Him in Himself, and straightway hath God honoured Him. God
has glorified Him in Himself, because He has already been glorified in
Him. God was glorified in Him: this refers to the
glory of the body, for by this glory is expressed in a human body the
glory of God, in the glory of the Son of Man is seen the divine
glory. God was glorified in Him, and therefore hath God
glorified Him in Himself: that is, by His promotion to the
Godhead, whose glory was increased in Him, God has glorified Him in
Himself. Already before this He was reigning in the glory which
springs from the divine glory: from henceforth, however, He is
Himself to pass into the divine glory. God hath glorified Him
in Himself: that is, in that nature by which God is what He
is. That God may be all in all: that His whole
being, leaving behind the Dispensation by which He is man, may be
eternally transformed into divinity. Nor is the time of this
hidden from us: And God hath glorified Him in Himself, and
straightway hath He glorified Him. At the moment when Judas
arose to betray Him, He signified as present the glory which He would
obtain after His Passion through the Resurrection, but assigned to the
future the glory with which God would glorify Him with Himself.
The glory of God is seen in Him in the power of the Resurrection, but
He Himself, out of the Dispensation of subjection, will be taken
eternally into the glory of God, that is, into God, the all in
all.
43. But what absurd folly is it of the
heretics to regard as unattainable for God that goal to which man hopes
to attain, to imply that He is powerless to effect in Himself that
which He is mighty to effect in us. It is not the language of
reason or common sense to say that God is bound by some necessity of
His nature to consult our happiness, but cannot bestow the like
blessings upon Himself. God does not, indeed, need any further
blessedness, for His nature and power stand fast in their eternal
perfection. But although in the Dispensation, that mystery of
great godliness, He Who is God became man, He is not powerless to make
Himself again entirely God, for without doubt He will transform us also
into that which as yet we are not. The final sequel of
man’s life and death is the resurrection: the assured
reward of our warfare is immortality and incorruption, not the
ceaseless persistence of everlasting punishment, but the unbroken
enjoyment and happiness of eternal glory. These bodies of earthly
origin shall be exalted to the fashion of a higher nature, and
conformed to the glory of the Lord’s body. But what then of
God found in the form of a servant? Though already, while still
in the form of a servant, glorified in the body, shall He not be also
conformed to God? Shall He bestow upon us the form of His
glorified body, and yet be able to do for His own body nothing more
than He does for Himself in common with us? For the most part the
heretics interpret the words, Then shall He be subjected to Him that
did subject all things to Himself, that God may be all in all, as
if they meant that the Son is to be subjected to God the Father, in
order that by the subjection of the Son, God the Father may be all in
all. But is there still lacking in God some perfection which He
is to obtain by the subjection of the Son? Can they believe that
God does not already possess that final accession of blessed divinity, because it is said that by
the coming of the fulness of time He shall be made all in all?
44. To me, who hold that God cannot be known
except by devotion, even to answer such objections seems no less unholy
than to support them. What presumption to suppose that words can
adequately describe His nature, when thought is often too deep for
words, and His nature transcends even the conceptions of thought!
What blasphemy even to discuss whether anything is lacking in God,
whether He is Himself full, or it remains for Him to be fuller than His
fulness! If God, Who is Himself the source of His own eternal
divinity, were capable of progress, that He should be greater to-day
than yesterday, He could never reach the time when nothing would be
wanting to Him, for the nature to which advance is still possible must
always in its progress leave some ground ahead still untrodden:
if it be subject to the law of progress, though always progressing it
must always be susceptible of further progress. But to Him, Who
abides in perfect fulness, Who for ever is, there is no fulness left by
which He can be made more full, for perfect fulness cannot receive an
accession of further fulness. And this is the attitude of thought
in which reverence contemplates God, namely, that nothing is wanting to
Him, that He is full.
45. But the Apostle does not neglect to say
with what manner of confession we should bear witness of God.
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and of the
knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His
ways past tracing out! For who hath known the mind of the
Lord? Or who hath been His counsellor? Or who hath first
given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him? For of Him,
and through Him, and in Him are all things. To Him be the glory
for ever and ever1300
. No earthly
mind can define God, no understanding can penetrate with its perception
to sound the depth of His wisdom. His judgments defy the
searching scrutiny of His creatures: the trackless paths of His
knowledge baffle the zeal of all pursuers. His ways are plunged
in the depths of incomprehensibility: nothing can be fathomed or
traced to the end in the things of God. No one has ever been
taught to know His mind, no one besides Himself ever permitted to share
His counsel. But all this applies to us men only, and not to Him,
through Whom are all things, the Angel of mighty
Counsel1301
, Who said, No
one knoweth the Son save the Father: neither doth any one know
the Father save the Son, and him to whom the Son hath willed to reveal
Him1302
. It is to
curb our own feeble intellect, when it strains itself to fathom the
depth of the divine nature with its descriptions and definitions, that
we must re-echo the language of the Apostle’s exclamation, lest
we should attempt by rash conjecture to snatch from God more than He
has been pleased to reveal to us.
46. It is a recognised axiom of natural
philosophy, that nothing falls within the scope of the senses unless it
is subjected to their observation, as for instance an object placed
before the eyes, or an event posterior to the birth of human sense and
intelligence. The former we can see and handle, and therefore the
mind is qualified to pass a verdict upon it, since it can be examined
by the senses of touch and sight. The latter, which is an event
in time, produced or constituted since the origin of man, falls within
the limits in which the discerning sense may claim to pass judgment,
since it is not prior in time to our perception and reason. For
our sight cannot perceive the invisible, since it only distinguishes
the seen; our reason cannot project itself into the time when it was
not, because it can only judge of that, to which it is prior in
time. And even within these limits, the infirmity which is bound
up with its nature robs it of absolutely certain knowledge of the
sequence of cause and effect. How much less then can it go back
behind the time when it had its origin, and comprehend with its
perception things which existed before it in the realms of
eternity?
47. The Apostle then recognised that nothing
can fall within our knowledge, except it be posterior in time to the
faculty of sense. Accordingly when he had asserted the depth of
the wisdom of God, the infinity of His inscrutable judgments, the
secret of His unsearchable ways, the mystery of His unfathomable mind,
the incomprehensibility of His uncommunicated counsel, he continued,
For who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto
him again? For of Him, and through Him, and in Him are all
things. The eternal God is neither subject to limitation, nor
did human reason and intelligence exercise their functions before He
had His being. His whole being is therefore a depth, which we can
neither examine nor penetrate. We say His whole being, not
to define it as limited, but to understand it in its unlimited
boundlessness: because of no one has He received His being, no
antecedent giver can claim service from Him in return for a gift
bestowed: for of
Him and through Him and in Him are all things. He does
not lack things that are of Him and through Him and in Him. The
Source and Maker of all, Who contains all, Who is beyond all, does not
need that which is within Him, the Creator His creatures, the Possessor
His possessions. Nothing is prior to Him, nothing derived from
any other than Him, nothing beyond Him. What element of fulness
is still lacking in God, which time will supply to make Him all in
all? Whence can He receive it, if outside Him is nothing, and
while nothing is outside Him, He is eternally Himself? And if He
is eternally Himself, and there is nothing outside Him, with what
increase shall He be made full, by what addition shall He be made other
than He is? Did He not say, I am and I change not1303
? What possibility is there
of change in Him? What scope for progress? What is prior to
eternity? What more divine than God? The subjection of the
Son will not therefore make God to be all in all, nor will any cause
perfect Him, from Whom and through Whom and in Whom are all
causes. He remains God as He ever was, and He needs nothing
further, for what He is, He is eternally of Himself and for
Himself.
48. But neither is it necessary for the
Only-begotten God that He should change. He is God, and that is
the name of full and perfect divinity. For, as we said before,
the meaning of the repeated glorifying, and the cause of the subjection
is that God may be all in all: but it is a Mystery, not a
necessity, that God is to be all in all. Christ abode in the form
of God when He assumed the form of a servant, not being subjected to
change, but emptying Himself; hiding within Himself, and remaining
master of Himself though He was emptied. He constrained Himself
even to the form and fashion of a man, lest the weakness of the assumed
humility should not be able to endure the immeasurable power of His
nature. His unbounded might contracted itself, until it could
fulfil the duty of obedience even to the endurance of the body to which
it was yoked. But since He was self-contained even when He
emptied Himself, His authority suffered no diminution, for in the
humiliation of the emptying He exercised within Himself the power of
that authority which was emptied.
49. It is therefore for the promotion of us,
the assumed humanity, that God shall be all in all. He Who was
found in the form of a servant, though He was in the form of God, is
now again to be confessed in the glory of God the Father: that
is, without doubt He dwells in the form of God, in Whose glory He is to
be confessed. All is therefore a dispensation only, and not a
change of His nature; for He abides still in Him, in Whom He ever
was. But there intervenes a new nature, which began in Him with
His human birth, and so all that He obtains is on behalf of that nature
which before was not God, since after the Mystery of the Dispensation
God is all in all. It is, therefore, we who are the gainers, we
who are promoted, for we shall be conformed to the glory of the body of
God. Further the Only-begotten God, despite His human birth, is
nothing less than God, Who is all in all. That subjection of the
body, by which all that is fleshly in Him, is swallowed up into the
spiritual nature, will make Him to be God and all in all, since He is
Man also as well as God; and His humanity which advances towards this
goal is ours also. We shall be promoted to a glory conformable to
that of Him Who became Man for us, being renewed unto the knowledge of
God, and created again in the image of the Creator, as the Apostle
says, Having put off the old man with his doings, and put on the new
man, which is being renewed unto the knowledge of God, after the image
of Him that created him1304
. Thus is
man made the perfect image of God. For, being conformed to the
glory of the body of God, he is exalted to the image of the Creator,
after the pattern assigned to the first man. Leaving sin and the
old man behind, he is made a new man unto the knowledge of God, and
arrives at the perfection of his constitution, since through the
knowledge of his God he becomes the perfect image of God. Through
godliness he is promoted to immortality, through immortality he shall
live for ever as the image of his Creator.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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