III. Thirdly, Christ in his preexistence was the Son of God. "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested," says the apostle John, "that he might destroy the works of the devil:" 1 John iii, 8. "In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him :" iv, 9. "We have seen, and do testify, that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world :" 14. And in his Gospel, the same inspired writer testifies, that when the Word was made flesh, his disciples beheld his glory "as the glory of the only-begotten of the Father:", 14. From these and other similar passages, it plainly appears, that the Person whom the Father sent into the world, who was then manifested in the flesh, and who (as we have already ascertained) dwelt, before his incarnation, in glory with the Father-was the Son of that Father—the Son of the Most High God. This doctrine is confirmed by the apostle Paul, who, in speaking of God's "dear Son," describes him as the "First-born, or the First-begotten, of the whole creation, (Col. i, 15, Greek Text;) and also by some of the ancient Israelitish prophets, who recognized the existence and authority of the same divine Person. "Kiss the Son," cried the inspired David, "lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little :" Ps. ii, 12. "Who hath ascended up into heaven or descended?" said Agur, in his prophecy ; "who hath gathered the winds in his fist? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is HIS SON's name if thou canst tell?" Prov. xxx, 4.

He

The title, "Sons of God" is, in a subordinate sense, sometimes applied to the angels, (Job. i, 6;) and at other times to the righteous among men, for these are the children of God by adoption, (Hos. i, 10; Rom. viii, 14: 1 John iii, 1, 2;) but Christ is denominated the Son of God in a proper and preeminent sense of the terms; for it is under this very title, that he is distinguished by the apostle from the angels themselves, and from all creatures: Col. i, 13-17: Heb. i, 1-14. is expressly denominated God's "own" son, (Rom. viii, 3. 32; comp. John v, 18; and this epithet "own," with the yet more emphatic term "only-begotten," affords an obvious indication, that, with regard to our Saviour, the title Son of God represents a relation to the Father Almighty absolutely peculiar to Jesus Christ, a relation to which no other being besides himself can prefer the slighest claim. Now, although the particular circumstances of that mysterious relation are placed far beyond the reach of human inquiry, since it is ever represented

by the sacred writers as an actual sonship-since Christ is denominated simply "the Son," because God is his Father; and God is denominated simply "the Father," because Christ is his Son-(Luke x, 22: John i, 18; iii, 35: 1 John ii, 24: &c.) it is surely no unsound or unreasonable inference, that Christ, as the true and only-begotten Son of the Father, really participates in the nature of God.

Now, these observations are confirmed by a fact which we learn from various passages of the New Testament—namely, that the Jews considered our Lord's assertion of his Sonship as equivalent to an assumption of the divine character, and therefore as involving the crime of blasphemy. "The Jews sought the more to kill him," says the evangelist, "because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his (own) father;* making himself equal with God:" (John v, 18;) Again, when Jesus declared himself to be the Son of God, and spoke of his union with the Father, they "took up stones to stone him," saying, " for a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, and because thou being a man makest thyself God:" John x, 33. Lastly, it is evident that this alone was the ground on which the rulers of that infatuated people finally adjudged him to be worthy of death. When Jesus was arraigned before their council, the question which they put to him was this: "Art thou then the SON OF GOD?" and when he replied to that question in the affirmative, they cried out, "What need we any farther witness? for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth :" Luke xxii, 70, 71. “Ye have heard the blasphemy-what think ye? And they all condemned him to be guilty of death :" Mark xiv, 64. Soon afterwards they said to Pilate, "we have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the SON OF GOD:" John xix, 7. The law to which the Jews thus appealed was obviously that article in the Mosaic code, which made it a capital offence to blaspheme the name of Jehovah :"† and this offence was supposed to be committed by Jesus Christ, when he declared himself to be the Son of God-because, in doing so, he assumed the divine character-because he, being a man, made himself God.‡

* πατέρα ἴδιον ἔλεγε τὸν Θεὸν.

+ Vide Le. xxiv, 16. "And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death."

When the angel of the Lord appeared to the Virgin Mary, he said

IV. Fourthly, Christ preexistent was the Word-the Word of God: see John i, 1; comp. Rev. xix, 13. The true signification of this title, which is never applied in the Scriptures to a merely human prophet, or to any other subordinate agent of Jehovah, but solely to the Lord Jesus Christ, may be collected partly from the records of the Old Testament, and partly from the known theology of the Jews at the time when the apostle wrote.

If we examine those parts of the Old Testament in which mention is made of the word of the Lord, or the word of God, we shall find that the term is one of very emphatic and comprehensive meaning-that it signifies not merely revealed truth, but more particularly the light, life, wisdom, and power, of the Almighty. By his word, God created the world, and brought all things into existence; (Gen. i, 3. 6. 9. 11, &c.: Ps. xxxiii, 6; comp. Wisd. Sol. ix, 1:) by his word he regulated the order of nature; (Ps. cxlvii, 15, 18; cxlviii, 8; comp. Eccles. xliii, 26 :) by his word he governed, (Num. xx, 24) enlightened, (Ps. cxix, 105) inspired, (1 Kings xii, 22; xiii, 1, 2. 9; 1 Chron. xvii, 3) healed, (Ps. cvii, 20; comp. Wisd. Sol. xvi, 12) and spiritually quickened, (Ps. cxix, 50) the children of men: see also cv, 19. cxix, 89; cxxxviii, 2; comp. to her, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God:" Luke i, 35.

When, again, Jesus was replying to the charge of blasphemy preferred against him by the Jews, he said, "Say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?" John x, 36.

Lastly, when the apostle Paul was discoursing on the subject of our Lord's resurrection, he said, "We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second Psalm: Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee:" Acts xiii, 32, 33,

If it be allowed, on the evidence of these passages, that our Saviour was the Son of God, in certain subordinate and secondary senses, viz. because he was conceived in the Virgin, of the Holy Ghost, because he was sanctified of the Father and sent into the world, and because he was raised the first-born from the dead-such an admission by no means countervails the plain doctrine of Scripture, that he was also the Son of God, in a far more exalted sense-the Son of God in his eternal preexistence-the Son of God in his unchangeable and divine nature. I apprehend, however, that the true doctrine to be derived from these passages is simply this: that by the glorious circumstances of his miraculous conception, of his authoritative mission, and of his resurection from the dead, his actual and divine sonship was displayed and demonstrated in the world: comp. Rom. i, 4: see Gill on Ps. ii: Luke i: John x.

Wisd. Sol. xviii, 15. When, therefore, the apostle applied this expression to the Son of God as a personal title, he appears in no very ambiguous manner to have conveyed the information, that it was through the Son that God constructed and regulated the material creation, inspired the prophets, and communicated to his people both the knowledge and the influence of his truth; or, in other words, that the Son was the mediating Person, through whom the Father acted, both in the formation and in the government of his creatures.

That this is a correct representation of the signification of this remarkable title, appears, in the second place, from the recorded opinions (in reference to the same doctrine) of certain eminent and early Jewish writers. In the Targums or Chaldaic paraphrases of the Old Testament-documents of high value, and, although of a date not precisely determined, yet of great and acknowledged antiquity-" the Word of Jah" (or of Jehovah) generally denotes Jehovah himself in his immediate communications with the people; and sometimes, in those paraphrases, this title obviously represents a Person, on the one hand distinguished from God, in whose behalf he acts, and on the other invested with the attributes, performing the works, and designated by the names, of deity.* Philo, the

*The following example will be sufficient to elucidate the views of the Targumists respecting the Word of Jah--that divine person, through whom Jehovah acts.

In the Jerusalem Targum, Gen. i, 27. is paraphrased as follows; "And the Word of Jah created man in his own likeness-in a likeness created he him in the presence of (or in behalf of) Jehovah ( out of heaven."

The present Deity, who is described in Gen. xviii, as conversing with Abraham, is in the same Targum denominated the Word of Jah; and Gen. xix, 24, in which verse we read that "Jehovah rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven," is there paraphrased in the following distinct and explicit manner : "And the Word of Jah sent down upon them sulphur and fire-" op D-from the presence (or in behalf) of Jah out of heaven."

In Gen. xx, 3, we read that "God came to Abimelech in a dream, and said to him," &c. Onkelos the Targumist has here distinguished the Divine Person who came to Abimelech from God who sent him. "And the Word from the presence of Jah (says he in his paraphrase of the passage) came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said unto him," &c.

In Hos. i, 7, Jehovah says to the prophet, "I will have mercy on the house of Judah and will save them by Jehovah their God." In the Targum of Jonathan, Jah is here introduced as the speaker, and says, "I will take pity on the house of Judah, and will save them by the Word of Jah, their God: see also Jon. in Isa. xlv, 18-25. In these and other similar passages, the expression "Word of Jah" uniformly represents the "Jehovah" of the Hebrew text.

Jewish Platonic philosopher, who was cotemporary with Jesus Christ and his apostles, but who lived in Egypt, and was probably quite unacquainted with Christianity (a subject to which he never once alludes,) has more largely unfolded the same =doctrine; and has described the Word of God as the FIRSTBEGOTTEN SON of the Almighty-the Vicegerent of Jehovah― the Person through whose efficacious mediation all the divine purposes were carried into act.* Lastly, in the Zohar, (a cabalistic commentary on Scripture, the principal part of which was probably composed within two or three centuries after the Christian era, by Simeon Ben Jochaï, and his disciples) the Messiah, in his preexistent condition, is again described as the Word, Son, and Image, of God; as the Creator of the World; as the gracious Schechina, or immediate and glorious Presence of Jehovah; and as being himself Jehovah ;† vide Schoettgen. de Messiâ, pp. 911, 912.

* The passages in the works of Philo, in which he makes mention of the Aéyos or Word of God, are very numerous. The following extracts may suffice as a specimen of them. In explaining the word Bethel, in Genesis xxviii, 17, he says, Τίς ἂν οὖν εἴη, πλὴν ὁ Λόγος ὁ Πρεσβύτερος τῶν γένεσιν εἰληφότων, οὗ καθάπερ οἴακος ἐνειλημμένος, (qu. ἐφειλημμένος) ὁ τῶν ὅλων κυβερνήτης πηδαλιουχεῖ τὰ σύμπαντα· καὶ ὅτε ἐκοσμοπλάστει χρμσάμενος ὀργάνῳ τούτῳ πρὸς τὴν ἀνυπαίτιον τῶν ἀπιτελουμένων σύστ Taσly. "Who can this be, but the Word, the Elder of all things that hath received birth, of whom, as of a helm, the Director of all things laying hold, steers the universe; and whom, when he formed the world, he employed as his instrument in the faultless composition of his finished works:" De Migrat Abrah. Ed. Mangeii, tom. i, p. 437. In his book of Allegories, our author thus comments upon the Hebrew name Bezaleël,, which may be interpreted, "God in the shadow:" Exià Cεоũ δὲ ὁ Λόγος αὐτοῦ ἔστιν, ᾧ καθάπες ὀργανῷ προσχρηςάμενος ἐκοσμοποίει αὕτη δὲ ἡ σκιὰ καὶ τὸ ὡσανεὶ ἀπεικόνισμα, ἑτέρων ἔστιν ἀρχέτυπον. “The shadow of God is his Word, whom he employed as his instrument when he made the world; this shadow, or, as it were, express image, being the archetype of other things: lib. iii, Ed. Mang. i, 106. In his work, De Agricultura, he again writes as follows: Kabang yag Tivα Toluvnv, yuv καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ ἀερα καί πᾶς, καὶ ὅσα ἐν τούτοις φυτά τε αὖ καὶ ζῶα τὰ μὲν θνητά, τὰ δε θεῖα, κ. τ. λ. ὡς ποιμὴν καὶ βασιλεὺς ὁ Θεὸς ἄγει κατὰ δίκην καὶ νόμον, προστήσαμενος τὸν ὀρθόν αὑτοῦ Λόγον πρωτόγονον Υἱὸν, ὃς τὴν ἐπιμέλειαν τῆς ἱερᾶς ταύτης ἀγέλης οἷά τις μεγάλου βασιλέως ὑπαρχος διαδέξεται. (νυ. διαδέχεται). “For God, in the capacity of a shepherd and king, conducts as a flock, under just regulation, the earth, the water, the air, and the fire, and whatever things are in them, vegetable or animal, mortal or immortal; together with the constitution of the heavens, the periods of the sun and moon, and the revolutions and harmonious courses of the stars; and he places over them his righteous Word, his First-begotten Son, who, like some deputy of a king, is charged with the government of this sacred flock:" tom. i, p. 308.

+ The indefatigable Schoettgen is said to have passed many years