|
Jesus Christ
CHRIST THE INCARNATE
81. Communion. It is
probable that the faculties of the man Christ Jesus, now in his
glorified state, are so enlarged that he can, with a full view and clear
apprehension of mind, at the same time think on all the saints in the
world, and be in the exercise of an actual and even of a passionate love
(such as we experience) to all of them is particular. It is certain that
human souls can have two ideas and more at the same moment in the mind,
otherwise how could the mind compare ideas and judge between them. It
will not suffice that they are very speedily, one after another, in the
mind for comparing. For let the second idea be in the mind never so
quick after the first, yet the mind cannot at that moment compare the
second idea with the first, if the first be entirely gone out of the
mind. For how can the mind compare an idea that is in the mind with
another at the same time that is not in the mind. And I do not see why a
mind cannot be of such powers as to be exercised about millions of
millions of ideas with as great intenseness and clearness of
apprehension as we admit two only. No doubt but the man Christ Jesus
loves believers, not only the church in general, without particularly
viewing one person, but that he loves believers in particular. No doubt
but that the man Christ Jesus loves the church in general, because it is
made up of those particular persons that he loves. He loves the church
because of the lovelinesses that he sees in the church, but he sees
loveliness nowhere else but in particular persons. Nor can we suppose
that the man Jesus only loves the persons that are most eminent, with a
particular love, but that every true saint may have the comfort of this
consideration. And, seeing that he loves them, no doubt but that he,
with a proper desire, desires communion with them; and even the man
Christ, being the same person with the divine, has communion with them,
by the communion of this person, as much as if his human soul were
present, and suggested and answered by suggestions those sweet
meditations. And there is the same delight in the man Christ as if he
were bodily present with them, talking and conversing with them. And
this seems to be one glorious end of the union of the human to the
divine nature, to bring God near to us; that even our God, the infinite
being, might be made as one of us; that his visible Majesty might not
make us afraid; that Jehovah, who is infinitely distant from us, might
become familiar to us. This capacity of the man Jesus is so large, by
reason of the personal union with the divine nature, that by this means
he knew the thoughts of men while on earth, and knew things acted at a
distance. No doubt but if the man Christ Jesus were, with his glorified
power, now on earth, and should meet here and there with holy men, he
would be perfectly acquainted with them at first sight. What kind of
powers are they, besides his own immutable attributes, that God cannot
create a finite being with? And what kind of powers may we justly
conclude his are, who is the firstborn of every creature, and is
personally united to the Deity? This seems to have been the universally
received belief of the primitive church, which nobody ever thought of
denying.
108. Excellency of Christ.
When we behold a beautiful body, a lovely proportion and beautiful
harmony of features, delightful airs of countenance and voice, and sweet
motions and gestures, we are charmed with it, not under the notion of a
corporeal but a mental beauty. For if there could be a statue that
should have exactly, the same, that could be made to have the same
sounds and the same motions precisely, we should not be so delighted
with it, we should not fall entirely in love with the image, if we knew
certainly that it had no perception or understanding. The reason is, we
are apt to look upon this agreeableness, those airs, to be emanations of
perfections of the mind, and immediate effects of internal purity and
sweetness. Especially it is so, when we love the person for the airs of
voice, countenance, and gesture, which have much greater power upon us
than barely colors and proportion of dimensions. And it is certainly
because there is an analogy between such a countenance and such airs and
those excellencies of the mind, — a sort of I know not what in them that
is agreeable, and does consent with such mental perfections, so that we
cannot think of such habitudes of mind without having an idea of them at
the same time. Nor can it be only from custom, for the same dispositions
and actings of mind naturally beget such kind of airs of countenance and
gesture, otherwise they never would have come into custom. I speak not
here of the ceremonies of conversation and behavior, but of those simple
and natural motions and airs. So it appears, because the same habitudes
and actings of mind do beget (airs and movements) in general the same
amongst all nations, in all ages.
And there is really likewise an analogy or consent between the beauty of
the skies, trees, fields, flowers, etc., and spiritual excellencies,
though the agreement be more hid, and require a more discerning, feeling
mind to perceive it, than the other. Those have their airs too, as well
as the body and countenance of man, which have a strange kind of
agreement with such mental beauties. This makes it natural in such
frames of mind to think of them and fancy ourselves in the midst of
them. Thus there seem to be love and complacency in flowers and
bespangled meadows. This makes lovers so much delight in them. So there
is a rejoicing in the green trees and fields, and majesty in thunder
beyond all other noises whatever.
Now we have shown that the
Son of God created the world for this very end, to communicate himself
in an image of his own excellency. He communicates himself, properly,
only to spirits, and they only are capable of being proper images of his
excellency, for they only are properly beings, as we have shown. Yet he
communicates a sort of a shadow, or glimpse, of his excellencies to
bodies, which, as we have shown, are but the shadows of beings, and not
real beings. He who by his immediate influence, gives being every
moment, and by his Spirit, actuates the world, because he inclines to
communicate himself and his excellencies, does doubtless communicate his
excellency to bodies, as far as there is any consent or analogy. And the
beauty of face and sweet airs in men are not always the effect of the
corresponding excellencies of mind, yet the beauties of nature are
really emanations or shadows of the excellencies of the Son of God.
So that when we are
delighted with flowery meadows, and gentle breezes of wind, we may
consider that we see only the emanations of the sweet benevolence of
Jesus Christ. When we behold the fragrant rose and lily, we see his love
and purity. So the green trees, and fields, and singing of birds are the
emanations of his infinite joy and benignity. The easiness and
naturalness of trees and vines are shadows of his beauty and loveliness.
The crystal rivers and murmuring streams are the footsteps of his favor,
grace, and beauty. When we behold the light and brightness of the sun,
the golden edges of an evening cloud or the beauteous bow, we behold the
adumbrations of his glory and goodness, and in the blue sky, of his
mildness and gentleness. There are also many things wherein we may
behold his awful majesty, in the sun in his strength, in comets, in
thunder, in the hovering thunderclouds, in ragged rocks, and the brows
of mountains. That beauteous light with which the world is filled in a
clear day, is a lively shadow of his spotless holiness, and happiness
and delight in communicating himself; and doubtless this is a reason
that Christ is compared so often to those things, and called by their
names, as the Sun of Righteousness, the morning star, the rose of
Sharon, and lily of the valley, the apple tree amongst the trees of the
wood, a bundle of myrrh, a roe, or a young hart. By this we may discover
the beauty of many of those metaphors and similes, which to an
unphilosophical person do seem so uncouth.
In like manner when we
behold the beauty of man’s body in its perfection, we still see like
emanations of Christ’s divine perfections: although they do not always
flow from the mental excellencies of the person that has them. But we
see far the most proper image of the beauty of Christ when we see beauty
in the human soul.
Corollary 1. From hence it
is evident that man is in a fallen state, and that he has naturally
scarcely anything of those sweet graces, which are an image of those
which are in Christ. For no doubt seeing that other creatures have an
image, of them according to their capacity: so all the rational and
intelligent part of the world once had according to theirs.
Corollary 2. There will be
a future state wherein man will have them according to his capacity. How
great a happiness will it be in heaven for the saints to enjoy the
society of each other, since one may see so much of the loveliness of
Christ in those things which are only shadows of being. With what joy
are philosophers filled in beholding the aspectable world. How sweet
will it be to behold the proper image and communications of Christ’s
excellency in intelligent beings, having so much of the beauty of Christ
upon them as Christians shall have in heaven.
112. Heaven. [Addition to M 108. Corollary 2] What beautiful and
fragrant flowers will those be, reflecting all the sweetnesses of the
Son of God! How will Christ delight to walk in this garden among those
beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies!
121. Incarnation. Christ
took the nature of a creature, not only because the creature’s great
love to him desired familiar communion with him, — more familiar than
his infinite distance would allow, — but also because his great love to
us caused him to desire familiar communion with us. So he came down to
us, and united himself to our nature.”
180. Christ’s Love. Such
thoughts as these are ready to run into our minds when we think of the
death of Christ; and would enflame our hearts with a sense of our love
therefrom, that we cannot certainly argue so great love of the eternal
Logos from it, for the Logos felt nothing, no pain, and suffered no
disgrace, but it was the Human Nature. But I answer, the love the Human
Nature had to mankind, and by which he was prompted to undergo so much,
it had only by virtue of its union with the Logos. It was all derived
from the love of the Logos, or else they would not be one person. Many
things also might be said together with this.
183. Christ’s Love. Such
was the love of the Son of God to the human nature, that he desired a
most near and close union with it, — something like the union in the
Persons of the Trinity: nearer than there can be between any two
distinct creatures. This moved him to make the human become one with
him, and himself to be one of mankind that should represent all the
rest; for Christ calls us brethren, and is one of us. How should we be
encouraged when we have such a Mediator! It is one of us that is to
plead for us: one that God from love to us has received into his own
person from among us. And it is so congruous that it should be so, and
is also so agreeable to the Scripture, that it much confirms in me the
truth of the Christian religion.
205. The Man Christ Jesus,
being the same Person with the eternal Son of God, has a reminiscence or
consciousness of what appertained to the eternal Logos, and so of his
happiness with the Father. Therefore we often find Christ speaking as
being very well acquainted with the Father before he came into the
world, and speaking of transactions betwixt him and the Father before he
came, as if there were an agreement about the work of redemption, and
what he should teach, what he should do, and who should be his. Thus
Christ frequently tells us that what he does, he does not do of himself,
but as he was ordered of the Father, and that he did not teach of
himself, but that he had received of his Father what he should teach,
before he came down from heaven, etc. So he speaks of his coming down
from heaven, as if he remembered how he was once there, and how he came
down. Now, when he remembered these things, he could not remember them
as they were in the infinite mind, for the idea of the Creator cannot be
communicated to the creature, as it is in God. But the remembrance as it
was in his mind was the same after a different manner. The things which
he remembered were from all eternity in the Logos after the manner of
God, and the man Christ Jesus was conscious to himself of them as if
they had been after the manner of a creature. Those transactions which
Christ speaks of in the Covenant of Redemption were no other than the
eternal and immutable gracious design, both of the Father and Son, of
what was to be done by the Son, and what was to be the fruit of it. It
was impossible that the man Christ Jesus should remember this as it was
in the Deity; for then an idea of the eternal mind could be communicated
to a finite mind, even as it is in the infinite mind. But he remembered
it as if it had been really such a transaction, before the world was,
between him and the Father. Not that he was deceived, for he knew how it
was, but as the consciousness of it was communicated to him, it must of
necessity seem thus. That in the general it was thus is no bold
conjecture, but so it must of necessity be. Though the particular manner
of this consciousness, and how far the ideas of a creature can be after
the manner of the divine mind, and how a creature may be said to
remember what is in God, is uncertain.
327a. End of the
Incarnation and Death of Christ. The infinite love, which there is from
everlasting between the Father and the Son, is the highest excellency
and peculiar glory of the Deity. God saw it therefore meet, that there
should be some bright and glorious manifestation made of it to the
creatures, which is done in the incarnation and death of the Son of God.
Hereby was most clearly manifested to men and angels the Distinction of
the Persons of the Trinity. The infinite love of the Father to the Son
is thereby manifested, in that for his sake he would forgive an infinite
debt, would be reconciled with, and receive into his favor and to his
enjoyment, those that had rebelled against him and injured his infinite
Majesty; and in exalting of him to that high mediatoral glory. And
Christ showed his infinite love to the Father in his infinitely abasing
himself for the vindication of his authority, and the honor of his
Majesty. When God had a mind to save men, Christ infinitely laid out
himself that the honor of God’s majesty might be safe, and that God’s
glory might be advanced.
395. Christian Religion.
Christ’s Incarnation. It is no argument against the reality of the
incarnation of Jesus Christ (whereby God became the same person with a
man), that it is such a strange thing that there is nothing else like it
or bears any shadow of it anywhere to be seen, because it was evidently
God’s design to show his wisdom by doing a thing that was, and forever
would have been, far beyond the thoughts of any creatures. Man’s fall
was God’s opportunity to show how far his contrivance and wisdom was
beyond that of all creatures.
487. Incarnation. As the
union of believers with Christ is by the indwelling of the Spirit of
Christ in them, so it may be worthy to be considered, whether or no the
union of the divine with the human nature of Christ is not by the Spirit
of the Logos dwelling in him after a peculiar manner and without
measure. Perhaps there is no other way of God’s dwelling in a creature
but by his Spirit. The Spirit of Christ dwelling in man causes an union
so that in many respects they are looked upon as one. Perhaps the Spirit
of the Logos may dwell in a creature after such a manner that the
creature may become one person, and may be looked upon as such, and
accepted as such. There is a likeness between the union of the Logos
with the man Christ Jesus and the union of Christ with the church,
though there be in the former great peculiarities.
The man Christ is united
to the Logos these two ways: —
1. By the respect which
God has to this human nature. God has respect to this man, and loveth
him as his own Son. This man has communion with the Logos in the love
which the Father has to him as his only begotten Son. Now the love of
God is the Holy Ghost, and
2. By what is inherent in
this man, whereby he becomes one person with the Logos, which is only by
the communion of understanding, and communion of will, inclination,
spirit, or temper. It is not any communion of understanding and will
that makes the same person, but the communion of understanding is such
that there is the same consciousness.
609. Christ God-Man, shall
reign after he has delivered up the kingdom to the Father; but not as he
does now. Now he reigns by a delegated authority, as a king’s son may
reign in some part of his dominions as his viceroy, or over the whole,
by having the whole government and management committed to him, and left
with him for a time. But then Christ will reign, as a king’s son may
reign, in copartnership with his father. Now he reigns by virtue of a
delegation or commission: then he will reign by virtue of his union with
the Father. Now things are managed in Christ’s name: they are left to
his ordering and government, and the Father reigns by the Son. Then the
Father will take the government upon himself; and things will be managed
in the Father’s name, and the Son shall reign in, and with the Father.
As it cannot be said that the Father does not reign now, when the
kingdom is in the hands of his Son, so neither can it be said that the
Son will not reign then, when the kingdom shall be delivered up into the
hands of the Father. The government of the world now takes its rise from
the Son, as the head and spring of it, and the Father reigns now by
virtue of the relation of the Son and his government to him, as his Son,
infinitely near and dear to him, the same with him in nature and will,
as being in the Son, and the Son from him commissioned and instructed by
him, acting and influencing by the same Spirit, and so the Father now
governs all by the Son. Then the government of the universe will be from
the Father and will take its rise from him, and then the Son will reign
by virtue of the Father’s relation to him, and his to the Father as
being his Father, the same in nature and will: the Son being his perfect
image, and being in the Father, being his Fellow, admitted to fellowship
and communion with him in government, and the Spirit of the Father, by
which he actuates and influences, being also his Spirit. Christ will
forever continue to reign over all things for two reasons : —
1. Because it is his natural right, as he is a divine person, the Son of
God. He has a right to reign forever, as he is the Father’s proper heir.
2. He will also reign forever, in reward for what he did as God-man, in
the work of redemption.
And again: “Christ will to all eternity continue the medium of
communication between God and the saints.”
738. The Divine Logos is
so united to the humanity of Christ that it spoke and acted by it and
made use of it as its organ, as is evident by the history of his life
and as it is evident he will do at the day of judgment. And this he
does, not occasionally once in a while, as he may in the prophets but
constantly, not by an occasional communication but a constant and
everlasting union. Now it is manifest that the Logos in thus acting by
the humanity of Christ did not merely make use of his body as an organ,
but his soul, not only the members of his body but the faculties of his
soul. Which can be no otherwise than by such a communication with this
understanding, as we call identity of consciousness. If the Divine Logos
speaks in (?) with the man Christ Jesus, so that the man Christ Jesus in
his speaking, should say “I say thus or thus,” and his human
understanding is made use of by the Logos, and it be the speech of his
human understanding: it must be by such a communication between the
Logos and the human nature as to communicate consciousness.
742. Christ the Kingdom Ruler. That kingdom that Christ shall deliver up
to the Father at the end of the world, is not properly his mediatorial
kingdom, but his representative kingdom. Christ, God-man, rules now as
representing the Father’s person in his government, and therefore that
work is committed to Christ, that according to the economy of the
Trinity, is properly the work of the Father, as particularly the work of
lawgiver and judge. But this state of things will not last always. God
the Father has committed his work to the Son for a season for special
and glorious reasons, but things are not thus fixed to be thus
ultimately and eternally, for that would amount even to an overthrowing
of the economy of the Persons of the Trinity. But doubtless this
representative kingdom, when the several ends of it shall be answered,
shall be delivered up; and things shall return to their own primeval,
original order. And every Person of the Trinity, in the ultimate and
eternal state of things, shall continue each one in the exercise of his
own economical place and work.
This representative, or
delegated, kingdom of Christ is not just the same with his mediatorial
kingdom. Indeed the kingdom that he has as the Father’s vicegerent, is
given and improved to subserve the purposes of his mediation between God
and the elect, but yet it is not the same with his mediatorial kingdom.
It is rather something that is superadded to that, which is most
essential in his mediatorial office and work, to subserve the purposes
of it, and therefore his mediation, or mediatorial work, will continue,
after that which is thus superadded ceases. Christ’s mediatorial kingdom
never will be delivered up to the Father. It would imply a great
absurdity to suppose that Christ should deliver up, or commit, the work
of a Mediator to the Father, as if the Father himself should
thenceforward take upon him the work of mediating between himself and
man. Christ’s mediation between the Father and the elect will continue
after the end of the world, and he will reign as a Middle Person between
the Father and them to all eternity; though he will not continue to do
the same things as Mediator, then, as he does now, as he now does not do
the same things as Mediator that he has done heretofore, and
particularly the work which he did when he was here on earth, called the
Impetration of Redemption, which work he finished and rested from when
he rose from the dead. But still unto men he is as much the Mediator
now, as he was then, and doing the work of a Mediator now, as well as
then. So though he will not continue to do the same parts of his
mediatorial work after the end of the world as he does now, such as
delivering the saints from the remains of sin, and interceding for them
as sinful creatures, and conquering their enemies (to subserve which
parts of his mediatorial work, his kingdom of vicegerency is committed
to him), yet he will continue a Middle Person between the Father and the
saints to all eternity, and as the head of union with the Father, and of
derivation from him, and of all manner of communication and intercourse
with the Father.
When the end comes, that
relation that Christ stands in to his church, as the Father’s viceroy
over her, shall cease, and shall be swallowed up in the relation of a
vital and conjugal Head, or Head of influence and enjoyment, which is
more natural and essential to the main ends and purposes of his union
with them. And henceforward his dominion or kingship over them will be
no other than what naturally flows from, or is included in, such an
headship. And now God will be all. The church now shall be brought
nearer to God the Father, who by his economical office sustains the
dignity and appears as the fountain, of the deity; and here enjoyment of
him shall be more direct. Christ, God-man, shall now no longer be
instead of the Father to them, but, as I may express it, their head of
their enjoyment of God: — as it were the eye to receive the rays of
divine glory and love for the whole body, and the ear to hear the sweet
expressions of his love, and the mouth to taste the sweetness and feed
on the delights of the enjoyment of God: the root of the whole tree,
planted in God, to receive sap and nourishment for every branch.
772. Christ the Mediator.
Christ as God-man is a fit person for a Mediator between God and man,
not only as he is a Middle Person between the Father and the Holy Ghost,
but also as he is a Middle Person between God and men themselves: he is
really allied to both. He is the Son of God and the Son of man, he is
both God and man, he is God’s son and our brother. And as he has the
nature of both, so he has the circumstances of both: — the glory,
majesty and happiness of the one, and the infirmity, meanness, disgrace,
guilt and misery of the other. As it was requisite in order to his being
Mediator between God and man, that he should be the subject of our
calamity, that he might know, on the one hand, how to pity us who
suffer, or are exposed to those calamities, so on the other hand, it was
requisite that he should be possessed of the glory and majesty of God,
that he might know how to value that glory and majesty, and to be
careful and tender of them, and effectually engaged to see to it that
they are well secured and gloriously magnified.
Christ brings God and man
to each other, and actually unites them together. This he does by
various steps and degrees, which terminate in the highest step, in that
consummation of actual union which he will accomplish at the end of the
world.
First, he came into the world, and brought God or Divinity down with him
to us, and then he ascended to God, and carried up humanity, or man,
with him to God. And from heaven he sent down the Holy Spirit, whereby
he gives God to man, and hereby he draws them to give up themselves to
God. He brings God to dwell with their souls on earth, at their
conversion, and he brings their souls to dwell with God in heaven, at
their death.
The time will come when he
will come down again from heaven in person, and will bring God with him
to man, a second time; and he will then ascend, a second time, to carry
up man with him to God. At the first descent, he brought divinity down
to us, under a veil. At his second coming, he will bring divinity down
with him, without a veil, appearing in its glory. At his first
ascension, after his own resurrection, he carried up our nature with him
to God. At his second ascension, after the general resurrection, he will
carry up our persons with him. At death, he brings the souls of the
saints to God in heaven; whereby a part of the church is gloriously
united to God. At the end of the world, he will bring in both body and
soul to heaven, and will bring all the church together to their highest
and consummate union with God, and this will be the last step he will
take, in the office of a Mediator, to unite God and man. Having
presented all his church together, in body and soul, to the Father,
without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, perfectly delivered,
perfectly restored, and perfectly glorious; saying, “Here am I, and the
children which Thou hast given me;” and having finished the work which
the Father gave him to do, then comes the end, when he will deliver up
the kingdom to the Father.
781. Christ the Mediator. Christ, God-man, is not only Mediator between
God and sinful men, but he acts as a Middle Person between all other
persons, and all intelligent beings, that all things may be gathered
together in one in him, agreeably to Eph. 1:10. He is the Middle Person
between the other two divine persons, and acts as such in the affair of
our redemption. Though he is not properly a Mediator between God and
angels, yet he acts in many respects as a Middle Person between them, so
that all that eternal life, glory and blessedness that they are
possessed of is by his mediety. And he is a kind of Mediator between one
man and another to make peace between them. He reconciles one man to
another by his blood by taking away all just cause one can have to hate
another for what is indeed hateful in them, and for which they deserve
to be hated of both God and man, by suffering for it fully as much as it
deserves, so that what the hatred of both God and man desires is here
fully accomplished in a punishment fully proportional to the hatefulness
of the crime. Were it not that the sins of men are already fully
punished in the sufferings of Christ, all, both angels and men, might
justly hate all sinners for their sins. For appearing as they are in
themselves, they are indeed infinitely hateful, and could appear no
otherwise to any than as they are in themselves, had not another been
substituted for them. And therefore they must necessarily appear hateful
to all that saw things as they are. It is impossible for any to hate a
crime as a crime or fault, without desiring that it should be punished,
for he that hates sin is thereby an enemy to it, and therefore
necessarily is inimical, or inclined to act against it, that it may
suffer, or to see it suffer. And if we impute men’s sins to them, i.e.
if we look on the hatefulness of their sins as their hatefulness, we
necessarily hate them, and are inclined that the sufferings that we
desire for their sins should be their sufferings. But now Christ has
suffered for the sins of the world, we ought to hate no man, because
Christ has suffered and satisfied for his sins, and therefore we should
endeavor to bring him to Christ. A right consideration of Christ’s
sufferings for the sins of others is enough to satisfy all just
indignation against them for their sins. So that Christ, by his
sufferings, has in a sense made propitiation for men’s sins, not only
with God but with their fellow creatures. And so, by his obedience, he
recommends them not only to the favor of God, but of one another, for
Christ’s righteousness is exceeding amiable to all men and angels that
see it aright, and Christ himself is amiable to them on that account.
And it renders all, that they look upon to be in him, amiable in their
eyes, to consider them as members of so amiable a head, as we naturally
love the children of those that we have a very dear love to. Christ, by
his death, has also laid a foundation for peace and love among enemies,
in that therein he has down two things: —
1. In setting the most
marvelous, affecting example of love to enemies: an example in an
instance wherein we are most nearly concerned, for we ourselves are
those enemies that he has manifested such love to. And,
2. He has done the
greatest thing to engage us to love him, and so to follow his example.
for the examples of such as we have a strong love to have a most
powerful influence upon us.
Christ was Mediator
between the Jews and Gentiles to reconcile them together, breaking down
the middle wall of partition. He also unites men and angels. He unites
angels to men by the following things: by taking away their guilt by his
blood; by suffering for that which otherwise would necessarily have
rendered them hateful to the angels; by taking away sin itself by
sanctification; by rendering those that are so much inferior in their
natures honorable in their eyes, and worthy that they themselves should
be ministering spirits to them, going forth to minister to their
salvation; by his taking their nature upon him, dying for them and
uniting them to be members of himself; by setting them such a wonderful
example, in manifesting God’s and his own eternal transcendent love to
them by the great things he did and suffered for them; by being an
intermediate person, as a bond and head of union, being a common head to
each, in which both are united; and by confirming their hearts by his
Spirit against all pride, which was the thing that caused such an
alienation between the angels that fell and men, so that they could not
endure to be ministering spirits to him, which was the occasion of their
fall.
902. Jesus Christ:
Prophet, Priest and King. When the appointed time that Jesus, the great
King, Priest, and Prophet of Israel, was to come, God, by a remarkable
hand of providence, brought to nothing the office of king, prophet, and
priest, among the Jews. After the captivity, the Jews, in their civil
power, were never wholly independent. For a while, considerable power
was in the hands of the governors of the house of David. Afterwards, the
kingly power was taken from the house of David and was assumed by the
priests. After this, Herod, who was but half Jew, ascended to the throne
Soon after his death Judea became a Roman province and was subject to
the Roman governor, as it was when Christ died. Soon after this, the
Jewish state was destroyed and all manner of civil power was taken from
them.
So as to the prophetical
office: it ceased with the prophet Malachi, or at least with Simon the
Just, and never revived otherwise (except in Christ or those that were
his forerunners or followers).
So the priestly office:
the high priesthood, which used to be hereditary, according to the law
of Moses, became subject to the disposal of either the Romans or the
ruling princes. The Jewish church, which for a great many ages say but
one high priest deposed, had a new head almost every year The
competition for the priesthood, at length, came to quarreling, sword in
hand. The temple at last was burnt down to the ground, the sacrifices
abolished, and the high priesthood extinct.
So with Christ being the
great sacrifice and the substance and end of all ceremonies, God, by
degrees and in his providence, brought those sacrifices and all those
ceremonies to nothing After this, God made it impossible that ever the
civil power of the house of David, the priesthood of Aaron, or the
ceremonial worship, should be restored, by blotting out among them the
memory and distinction of their tribes and families, and confounding
their attempts for rebuilding the temple. The zealots at length broke
into the holy place and drove out all the families from which the high
priests were usually taken and set up one Phanus, a stupid, ignorant
fellow. These zealots, before the destruction of Jerusalem, made the
temple a mere slaughter house and receptacle for robbers. See Basnage’s
History of the Jews, book 1, chap. iii, iv, v, vi, where one sees the
most horrid corruptions and vices of the high priests, before
Jerusalem’s destruction.
If Christ therefore be not the Messiah, what becomes of that prophecy
and promise, so solemnly made and so extraordinarily confirmed, in Jer.
33:14 to the end.
957. Christ Glorified.
After the curse is executed on the universe of the ungodly, and all the
angels and saints have beheld the dreadful execution, then Christ, with
all his elect church, now perfect, shall ascend to heaven, and Christ
shall come and present his church, now perfectly redeemed, to the
Father, saying, “Here am I, and the children whom thou hast given me.”
And having thus finished all the work that the Father had given him to
do, he shall deliver up the kingdom to the Father. Then shall the
Father, with infinite manifestations of endearment and delight, testify
his acceptance of Christ, and of his church thus presented to him, his
infinite acquiescence in what his son has done, and his complacency in
him, and in his church. And in reward he shall now give them the joy of
their eternal marriage feast, and he himself will dress his Son in his
wedding robes. The human nature of Christ, or Christ as God-man, shall
be the subject of a new glorification then, when he shall be the subject
of those smiles of the Father, and those infinitely sweet manifestations
of his acceptance and complacency, when he shall present his redeemed
church, and deliver up the kingdom. And from the manifestations of
complacency, the Son shall be changed into the same image of complacency
and love, and shall put on that divine glory, the glory of the
infinitely sweet divine love, grace, gentleness, and joy, and shall
shine with this special light far more brightly than ever he did before,
shall be clothed with those sweet robes in a far more glorious manner
than ever before: then shall that be fulfilled in the highest degree;
Psa. 21:6, “For thou hast made him most blessed for ever; thou hast made
him exceeding glad with thy countenance;” and also the foregoing verses.
Thus God the Father will give the Son his heart’s desire, as it is said
in the 2nd verse of that psalm: his heart’s desire was, that he might
express his infinite love to his elect church, fully and freely; to this
end God the Father will now crown him with a crown of love, and array
him in the brightest robes of love and grace, as his wedding garments,
as the robe in which he should embrace his redeemed church, now brought
home to her everlasting rest, in the house of her spiritual husband. As
before he came into this accursed world in the glory of the Father, and
God the Father arrayed him with his own glory, chiefly of his majesty,
power, justice, omnipotence, and holiness, attributes that are terrible
to God’s enemies, because his errand into this reprobate part of the
universe was to destroy it; so now he is returned and entered into the
elect and blessed world, to receive the joy that was set before him with
his church. Now he shall more especially have conferred on him the glory
of his Father, in his gentle and sweet attributes, shining forth in the
infinitely bright robes of his love, and grace, and holiness, his sweet
ravishing beauty and delight, that he may bless and glorify that elect
world with the beams of this light. The Son being thus glorified with
infinite sweetness, by the light of the countenance of the Father, the
glory will be communicated from him to his church, and she shall be
transformed into his image by beholding him, and by the light of his
glory and love, shining and smiling upon her. And at that time will be
the transformation of all heaven, and it will become a new heaven. The
beams of the Son’s new glory of grace and love shall advance that whole
world to new glory and sweetness. Thus Christ and his saints shall both
receive their consummate felicity and full reward, and shall begin that
eternal feast of love, and the eternal joys of that marriage supper of
the Lamb. The saints shall not receive their full happiness till then,
though they shall be glorified on earth when they shall be raised and
changed at the first sight of their glorious Redeemer coming in the
clouds, and shall be further glorified when they shall be made to sit
with Christ on his throne of judgment. Yet Christ speaks of their
greatest happiness as then future, when he says, at the close of the
judgment, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you,” etc. Now they shall inherit it. Now they shall be put in
possession of it.
Thus, though the new glory
of heaven shall be, as it were, from the communicated influence and
glory of the Sun of righteousness returning to heaven from the judgment,
yet it will not be at once, as soon as the beams of the returning Jesus
shine on that world. But Christ, with all his saints and angels, shall
first enter into the world, and they shall have opportunity to see its
glory in its former state. And then the presentation shall be made to
the Father, and his acceptance manifested, and the purchased glory then
given by his hands, so that the saints and angels shall have opportunity
fully to see this work of the new creation. First fully beholding the
world before its renovation, and then seeing the change as it is, with
the destruction of the reprobate world. That world, as it were, sinks of
itself, flies away, and breaks in pieces, by beholding the manifestation
of his awful majesty and wrath. The shining forth of the infinitely pure
and powerful holiness, justice, and wrath, does, as it were of itself,
set all on fire, yet this destruction will not actually be at Christ’s
first appearing in terrible majesty in the lower world, but at the
greatest manifestation of it when he pronounces the curse on the
ungodly.
How immensely will it
heighten, in the eyes of the saints, the value of that love and
gentleness with which they now shall see Christ clothed, that they just
before have seen such great manifestations of his infinite majesty, and
the terribleness of his wrath! And how will it heighten their admiration
and joy in his love, when Christ himself, that glorious King, shall
resign up the kingdom to the Father! Though he shall receive now his
reward, and new glory from the Father, it will not be to act
henceforward as the Supreme Head of dominion, to whom the government of
the world is left, but rather as a head or grand medium of enjoyment of
the Father. Christ himself shall be admitted to a higher enjoyment of
the Father than ever he was admitted to before; and in Christ the saints
shall enjoy the Father. The Son himself, as God-man, shall now be
subject to the Father. After the saints have seen him in infinite
majesty in the judgment wherein his glorious and divine dignity
appeared, and now come to see him in his ineffable mildness and love,
they shall also see his transcendent humility in his adoration of the
Father. And what a sense will this give them of the honor of the Father,
to behold Jesus Christ, God-man, a person of such dignity as they saw in
the judgment, thus humbly adoring the Father! And how will this example
influence their adoration of God, and keep up their reverence in that
infinite nearness and freedom to which they are admitted, as the sight
they have had of the terrible majesty of Christ in the judgment will
keep up their reverence towards him in the midst of their most intimate
communion with him, and while they dwell, as it were, in his arms, and
on his lips! See concerning the new occasion of glory to the highest
heavens at Christ’s first ascension, Note on these words, John 14:2, “I
go to prepare a place for you.”
1106. Righteousness of
Christ. That salvation is not only by the atonement of Christ but by his
obedience to the law or commands of God is manifest by Heb. 10:8-10.
Above when he said “sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and
offering for sin thou wouldst not neither hadst pleasure therein, which
are offered BY THE LAW.” Then said he “Lo I come to do thy will, O God.
He taketh away the first that he may establish the second BY THE WHICH
WILL we are sanctified.” In what Christ says in Psalms 40, which is here
quoted by the Apostle, Christ speaks of his appearing in the form of a
servant or become a servant to God for our sakes like the servant that
had his ear bored to perform an upright willing service to God and
perfect obedience to his law. I delight to do thy will O my God, and thy
law is within my heart. The Apostle here signifies that it was by that
WILL or that LAW, as it was fulfilled in the human nature of Christ
(here called his body), that we are sanctified and not the ceremonial
law, as fulfilled in Levitical sacrifices which law the Apostle speaks
of in the 8th verse.
|
