Let the reader suppose himself to have been present as a disinterested spectator of the condition of the Hebrew Church in Egypt prior to the legation of Moses; to have witnessed their practice of the rites and forms of the patriarchal worship, in contrast with the idol worship of the Egyptians; to have witnessed instances, like that of Moses, of individuals "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of G.o.d than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of CHRIST greater riches than the treasures of Egypt;" to have heard their sighs and cries to G.o.d by reason of their bondage, and known that "G.o.d heard their groaning, and remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and looked upon the children of Israel, and had respect unto them;"
and that the Messenger Jehovah said, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people, and have heard their cry by reason of their task-masters; for I know their sorrows, and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians;" and further, to have known that they were familiar with the historical facts of the patriarchal history, and of the appearances of Jehovah in the form and under the designation of man to Abraham and to Jacob, and often visibly as the Messenger Jehovah; and that altars were erected, and sacrifices and prayers were offered to him in that form; and that he was customarily recognized and worshipped in that form, at places specially appropriated by him for that purpose, where he was to be invoked and acknowledged as Jehovah the Elohe of Abraham; and he will the more easily conceive, in some degree, of the enormity of the insult and provocation offered by the partisans of the rival counterfeit system, in erecting altars, offering sacrifices, and bowing themselves down before molten images as representatives of the great antagonist intelligence; or, as in the case of Aaron, Micah, Jeroboam and others, as representatives of Jehovah. If the reader suppose himself to have witnessed the appalling demonstrations against the false system, in the plagues of Egypt, at the Red Sea, at Mount Sinai, and in the wilderness, in connection with the visible presence, agency, and glory of the Messiah; or under a vivid impression of the reality and import of these scenes and wonders; to have been present at those periods and on those occasions when the defection of the Israelites to image and Baal worship was specially marked and signally punished, his impression of the nature of the antagonism, and the enormity of the provocation and insult, cannot fail to be heightened.
The apostle Paul, treating (Rom. i.) of the defection of men to idolatry, says, "they changed the glory of the incorruptible G.o.d into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things:" meaning, it is presumed, that they ascribed to the images of those creatures--which they made and served as representatives of the created intelligence whom they worshipped--the attributes, perfections, and prerogatives which he had conspicuously and gloriously manifested in his works of creation and providence. Whether the formation of such images was coeval with the earliest practice of idolatrous rites or not, may be a question. But in the selection of men, birds, and four-footed beasts as models of the forms of the images earliest employed in their idolatry, there is ground to presume that they copied or simulated the cherubic figures so familiar to the Israelites under the Levitical economy, and probably to the Church at all previous times, as a const.i.tuent of the inst.i.tuted system of manifestation and instruction, from the appearance of the cherubim at the gate of Eden. That primeval appearance demonstrates that they were not borrowed from any inst.i.tution or example of the idolaters; and in so capital a point as that of inst.i.tuting representative images in their antagonist system, they would be sure to counterfeit, and to pervert from its office and meaning in the true system, whatever would serve the purpose of craft and deception. In respect to "creeping things," they had in the serpent a prototype altogether their own, which, when the images previously mentioned had been adopted, and impiously consecrated to idolatry, might easily be brought into use.
Pankhurst, under the word Cherubim, in his Hebrew Lexicon, describes no less than sixty examples in which heads or other parts resembling the cherubic figures are incorporated in the objects of idolatrous homage of different heathen nations.
Maimonides, as quoted by Parkhurst, says that the first idolaters regarded the heavenly bodies as messengers or mediators of a supreme, infinite, invisible Being. In the worship of those bodies, or rather of the mediating intelligence supposed to reside in them, either because they were often out of sight, or for other reasons, they selected representative creatures, chiefly of the species comprised in the four-faced cherubim, but sometimes of other species, and among them of the serpent, and at length of mineral and metallic images of such creatures.
In a number of the examples cited by Parkhurst, the serpent, or the serpent"s head, appears conspicuous; and particularly in idol forms representative of the sun or Baal. In most of the images, the human form predominates; around which the serpent often appears entwined. The cherubic wings are indifferently attached to the human and the leading animal forms, and to the serpent. The combinations, especially of heads, in these representative images, strikingly suggest that the example of the cherubic faces was perverted to be the basis of the system, and that the serpent, when not exhibited as a distinct and sole object of homage, was foisted in and superadded to the figures which were familiar in the original system of revealed religion. In most of the complex forms in which different animals are combined, reference appears to have been had to the sun or Baal, _i. e._ to Satan, the supposed mediating intelligence resident in the sun.
In a published account of two "sculptured images" disinterred by Mr.
Layard from the ruins of ancient Nineveh, and forwarded by him to Williams College, Ma.s.s., being supposed to have "been buried in the ruins of that city not less than twenty-five hundred years," and to be samples of the earliest "idols" inst.i.tuted in that capital, the date of which is supposed to be about one hundred and thirty years after the deluge, the figure of one is described as "that of _a man with wings and an eagle"s head and beak_, well proportioned. The two wings, springing from the back of the shoulders, are gracefully spread." The other is a figure simply of a man, seven and a half feet in height. They are p.r.o.nounced "perfect of their kind. The slabs on which they are sculptured are dark gypsum, such as are described as lining the walls of the rooms and pa.s.sages of the ruin, which Layard regards as having const.i.tuted at once the temple and palace of the king. One of the slabs is seven feet, and the other seven and a half feet high, and they are each three feet and two inches wide. The figures are the whole length of the slabs."
Here is a manifest, and in all likelihood a surrept.i.tious combination of two of the figures in the cherubic emblem, which, without some prototype, and a prototype already a.s.sociated with the religion which was to be renounced, perverted, and counterfeited, would not be likely to occur, or to be easily brought into use and favor. An existing and familiar prototype might be copied exactly--as altars, sacrifices, incense, and various rites appear to have been--or with some modifications, and yet be readily adopted. In this view it would be obvious to argue, that as Jehovah often appeared on earth in the similitude of man, and thereby taught and virtually antic.i.p.ated his future predicted incarnation; and as that form was a.s.sociated with others in the cherubic emblem, therefore that emblem might be taken as representative of the Intelligence to be worshipped, and as teaching the doctrine of his incarnation not merely in the form and nature of man, but also in birds, four-footed beasts, and all other creatures brought into existence by him. Such pantheism undoubtedly resulted. But had the first forms of images been wholly an original device of the idolaters, they would naturally have selected not complex, but simple ones. They would have copied nature. They would in all probability have selected first the human form; but they would have taken that as it visibly appears, without a mysterious and inexplicable combination of inferior natures with it.
Next, they would very likely select the bird--the eagle--whose flight transcends the clouds, and whose eye endures the blaze of solar light; and next, the most docile and most useful, and then the most powerful and sagacious quadrupeds; in all instances, as is held by Warburton and others, and is highly probable in itself employing images and pictures long before they idolized the animals themselves.
A progress and an a.n.a.logy of this kind--notwithstanding that the whole subject of idolatry, its origin, its nature, its rationale, its import as an antagonism to the revealed religion, and as involving the reason and an intelligible and ample justification of the jealousy, wrath, indignation, judgments, retributions, and finally of exterminating vengeance against it, has been mystified and misrepresented, under the rabbinical and figurative systems formerly adverted to--might be traced, and indefinitely ill.u.s.trated, by reference to the Sphinxes, Centaurs, Pans, &c., of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; the Brahmas, the Vishnus, the Sivas, and the incarnations and transmigrations of India, and the Boodism and Lamaism of the whole Eastern world.
The notion of local deities, national G.o.ds, &c., implied the doctrine of incarnation, and was no doubt suggested by the Theophanies of the patriarchal history and the Theocracy of the Mosaic, administered by the Messenger Jehovah, locally present in the tabernacle in a cloud-like form, where he was inquired of in respect to things future, and held converse with Moses, Joshua, and their successors. In imitation, the devotees of Baal conceived of him as present in their temples, inhabiting the forms of their idols, and hearing their statements and requests.
Thus Moses returned to Jehovah as present in the burning bush, and said, "O Adonai! wherefore," &c. Exod. v. 22. "And David the king came and sat before Jehovah, [_i. e._, in the tabernacle,] and said," &c. 1 Chron.
xvii. 16.
So, on the other hand, "The Philistines took Saul"s head and his armor, and sent into the land of the Philistines round about, to carry tidings unto their idols and to the people. And they put his armor in the house of their G.o.ds, and fastened his head in the temple of Dagon." 1 Chron.
x. 9, 10.
Mr. Layard, in his recent account of "Nineveh and its Remains,"
observes, that the sculptured walls which he explored continually exhibited forms corresponding to the description of the living creatures seen in vision by Ezekiel, (chap. i.;) and also what he supposes may have represented the wheel spoken of in that description--the former showing the face of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle; and the latter, a winged circle or globe, hovering above the head of the king, as an emblem of the supreme deity of the a.s.syrian nation; with a winged figure in the middle, representing the sun. The king, he adds, may, as in Egypt, have been regarded as the representative on earth of the deity, of whom the emblem is exhibited as above his head in battle, during his triumphs, and when he celebrates the sacred ceremonies. The author, who supposes the station of Ezekiel by the river of Chebar to have been in the immediate vicinity of Nineveh, absurdly indicates that, "As the prophet had beheld the a.s.syrian palaces, with their mysterious images and gorgeous decorations, it is highly probable that, when seeking to typify certain Divine attributes and to describe the Divine glory, he chose forms that were not only familiar to him, but to the people whom he addressed, captives like himself in the land of a.s.syria.
He chose the four living creatures, with four faces, four wings," &c.
The forms which the prophet _saw_ in vision a.s.suredly did not depend upon his choice; and if they had, he would not have represented the true G.o.d by forms borrowed from idolatry. Nor is it likely that the captives were admitted to the palaces of their a.s.syrian conquerors. These forms, on the contrary, having been familiar in the patriarchal system of revealed religion, had been simulated by the earliest idolaters.
But the most comprehensive and striking ill.u.s.trations of idolatry, as a studied, rival, antagonistic counterfeit of the revealed system and true worship, are to be derived from those symbols of the Apocalypse which relate to Antichrist; to the two-horned wild beast and the image--the great Antagonist, and his Papal agents under that character; to his arrogation of the attributes, prerogatives, rights, throne, dominion and homage of G.o.d the Mediator, a.s.sumption of his t.i.tles and office, and exercise of authority as lawgiver over his people; and from those symbols which relate to the fall and destruction of Great Babylon, and the imprisonment of "the ancient Serpent, who is the Devil and Satan;"
as those symbols are explained and rendered intelligible in "An Exposition of the Apocalypse, by David N. Lord;" a work distinguished by its discovery of and adherence to scriptural interpretations of symbols, and by its originality in every respect. (See note A at the end.)
The great fabric of pagan idolatry, as a rival system to the true religion, and a counterfeit Theocracy, combining the civil with the religious administration, was the organism through which the Arch-usurper carried on his rivalship in all the heathen nations down to the age of Constantine. Then, to meet the exigences of his case, in opposition to Christianity in the Roman Empire, he made the ecclesiastical hierarchies in union with the civil government the medium of his rule. When the empire was divided, the eastern from the western portion, leaving the eastern under the dragon sway of preceding ages, he a.s.sumed for the western that of the wild beast and false prophet--the civil rulers of the ten kingdoms and the Papal hierarchy. Under these organizations he has, in both divisions of that empire, continued to exhibit more boldly and arrogantly even than in the regions of ancient paganism, his usurpations of the Divine prerogatives; warring against the Lamb, corrupting and opposing the propagation of the gospel, persecuting and slaughtering the saints; and will continue that career till finally vanquished and imprisoned. The issue at the advent of the incarnate Word with the armies of heaven, the incarceration of the great Usurper, and the dejection of his followers into the lake of fire, strikingly indicate the nature and purpose of his previous antagonism and rivalship. Prolonged and desperate as his rebellion and usurpation had been, extended and arrogant as were his pretensions and sway as G.o.d of this world, the mystery of his iniquity is at length terminated by the exercise, through visible agencies, of Divine power over his person. (See note B.)
CHAPTER XXII.
On the question, How it has happened, since the origin of the Nicene Creed, that the Old Testament has been understood to ascribe the Creation, not to the Christ, but to the Father.
Since the New Testament distinctly ascribes the work of creation to the official Person called the Logos and the Christ, and, in harmony with the Old, demonstrates his ident.i.ty with Jehovah, Elohim, and the Messenger Jehovah, it may justly occasion surprise and deserve inquiry, how it has happened that the Old Testament has, both by Jews and Christians, so long and so generally been construed, as in our own and other modern translations, to ascribe those works, not to Him, personally or officially, but to the Father, or to the Deity irrespective of any personal distinctions or official relations.
As preliminary to this inquiry, it may be observed, that the office which belonged to him in his delegated character was const.i.tuted before the creation of the world. That office included the redemption of his people, who were chosen in him before the creation. His relation to them, therefore, did not commence after the fall, nor after the creation. For his official work includes the work of redemption; and since those to be redeemed were before the creation chosen in him, whatever in his mediatorial person, office and character belongs to him as their Redeemer, must have been const.i.tuted prior to the work of creation. And since the works of creation and providence had, and continue to have, an intimate connection with the work of redemption, and are in some things identical with that work, we must conclude that whatever belongs officially to his person and character was const.i.tuted prior to the creation; and that the covenant transaction, in which the second person of the Trinity was appointed and undertook to be the Redeemer, comprised all that appertains to the const.i.tution of his person and office as Mediator; so that thenceforth he was in a capacity to act officially in his delegated character as Mediator, as truly and perfectly as at any subsequent period. The connection and consistency of the entire plan of creation, providence, and redemption, in its relations to him in the progress of its execution, require this conclusion; and hence the particularity and emphasis with which the apostles, in setting forth his prerogatives as Mediator and Redeemer, for the conviction of those who saw him only as man, a.s.sert that he was in the beginning--_i. e._, in the delegated official character which they then ascribed to him; that he was before all things; that by him all things consist; that in the beginning he laid the foundation of the earth, created the heavens and the earth, brought into existence all creatures visible and invisible; that he was in respect to the entire system the Alpha and Omega, First and Last. Their object required that all this should be believed of him in the official person and character in which for the suffering of death he appeared incarnate. _It was in no respect to their purpose_ to a.s.sert of him that _as Divine_, or in his _Divine nature_, he existed prior to the creation, and exercised creative power. The whole question was as to the complex, delegated official person and character of him who visibly appeared, wrought miracles, and was called Jesus, the Christ. It is with reference to this that they a.s.sert his preexistence, ascribe to him the works of creation and providence, and declare him to be the only Mediator between G.o.d and man--the only medium of relations and intercourse between the invisible Deity and creatures.
This is what the apostate, idolatrous and infidel world, in subserviency to the great Adversary and his followers, have over opposed. This is the question to be decided to the full and final conviction of the whole universe, in the battles described in Rev. xix. and xx.; in the first of which the Mediator, in the person of Jesus, _clothed with a vesture dipped in blood_, and called _The Word of G.o.d_, appears in his glory, and vanquishes the Arch-enemy and all his adherents; and in the second, fire from heaven devours his enemies of the human race, and the Devil that deceived them is cast into the lake of fire, to be tormented for ever and ever. Then, every tongue will acknowledge the true character of this Personage. Then will be solved the mystery concerning the creation of all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that unto the princ.i.p.alities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church--_i. e._, by the redemption of the Church, as comprising substantially all the works of providence--the manifold wisdom of G.o.d, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Ephes. iii.
The great purpose of the works of creation, providence and redemption is, to manifest the Divine perfections to intelligent creatures; so to instruct them in the knowledge of G.o.d, and so to display his righteousness and the nature and evil of sin, that they might discern the glorious excellency, holiness, loveliness, amiableness and beauty of the character revealed, and cordially love, obey and enjoy him for ever.
This purpose is from the beginning executed by the Mediator, in the delegated character in which he appears at its consummation.
His office, accordingly, placed him as the medium of all relations and communications between the invisible Deity and creatures; and his official undertaking comprised the works of creation, providence, and redemption; the manifestation of the Divine perfections; the vindication of the Divine prerogatives, laws, and government; the redemption of lost men; the union, confirmation and blessedness of all holy creatures under him as King, and the subjection and punishment of Satan, the fallen angels and wicked men.
From the nature of intelligent creatures, and their relations to one another and to material objects, the execution of this undertaking required a course of external and visible facts connected both with his and their agency. They were to be instructed both in respect to themselves and to him; and as the visibility of their persons and acts was necessary to their instruction concerning one another, the visibility of his person and acts was necessary on the same account.
It is evident that the Mediator has, officially, relations to the holy angels, not only as their Creator, but in other respects. They are required to worship him in that character, _i. e._, in the character in which he came into the world. Heb. i. 6. They are employed in executing the measures of his mediatorial administration. Heb. i. 14. They attended his person on the occasion of his advent, his temptation, his sufferings and resurrection, and join his people in their songs and praises, in view of his final triumph and exaltation.
As Mediator, he is invested with all power in heaven and earth. All judgment is committed to him in that capacity, "because he is the Son of man," the official Person; and we must conclude that his official work comprises all Divine operations relating to creatures.
In the phraseology both of the Old and New Testaments, where G.o.d is represented as acting or speaking, the expression in most cases is such as would occur were there no distinction of persons in the G.o.dhead, unless we understand, wherever the text does not in terms or in the nature of the subject indicate another reference, that the appellations, Elohim, Jehovah, Messenger Jehovah, &c., are employed to designate the Mediator, personally and officially. But so understood, he stands forth the external representative, the visible image, the outward manifestation, the official agent, the messenger of the Father, and as such reveals Him; and by the mission and cooperation of the Holy Spirit in the work of redemption, that Divine Person is made known. The entire scheme respecting the creation and government of creatures being in the counsels of eternity a.s.signed to the second Person, as the official agent and messenger delegated and sent of the Father, it appertained to him to make known to creatures all that they are to know of the being and perfections of the One G.o.d and the distinction of persons in the G.o.dhead.
Accordingly the Deity, without any special indication of personal or official relations, is often referred to under the terms Jehovah and Elohim, where the object required only a distinction of divine from creature attributes or agency. In this way, in one cla.s.s of pa.s.sages, G.o.d is said to do the same things which in another cla.s.s are expressly ascribed to the Messenger Jehovah, the Christ, the Word.
But where a reference is made to any thing in the economy of redemption, or any thing involving official acts or relations, official t.i.tles are introduced, or a phraseology is employed, by which the intended meaning is expressed. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are clearly distinguished, or their personality, relations and agency are indicated by the nature of the things recorded, or by the connections in which they occur.
It is in this view that we understand all those pa.s.sages in which the divine names and the official t.i.tles of the Mediator are interchangeably applied to the same Person. In all such cases the things affirmed are in other pa.s.sages affirmed of the Messiah, under t.i.tles which exclusively belong to him. He is in this manner announced in the Old Testament as Jehovah, the Elohe of Abraham, the Creator, &c. The patriarchs and prophets knew G.o.d, as manifested in him in his delegated, official, personal character. That they were enlightened in respect to the invisible Deity absolutely considered, and in respect to the distinction of Persons, is no more to be doubted than that they were enlightened as to the great Revealer. The sublime conceptions proper to this subject were undoubtedly so imparted, received, and cherished as to render the doctrine of mediation and of the delegated personal character of the Mediator an intelligible and practical doctrine. This may be inferred, not only from all that is recorded concerning the religion of the patriarchs, the sacrifices, prayers, types and symbols connected with their worship, but also from the theory of the earliest idolatry, which was a rival system, and was based upon the idea of mediation between a supreme invisible Deity and creatures, and consisted in regarding as mediators created intelligences, supposed to reside in the planetary orbs, and in images or idols as their representatives. It is obvious, indeed, from the nature of the case, that where any notion of mediation and a Mediator prevailed, and was indicated in the rites and inst.i.tutions of worship, there, and, above all, under a system of revealed religion and acceptable worship, an apprehension more or less distinct, enlarged and just of the invisible Deity, of the concealed as well as of the revealed G.o.d, must have been entertained.
Nevertheless, concerning this subject much was reserved to be taught by the Mediator in his incarnate state, when the distinction of Persons in the G.o.dhead and their official designations could be rendered plain by his visible personal acts, his verbal explanations, and the agency and gifts ascribed to the Holy Spirit. This was in accordance with the progress and a.n.a.logy of revelation in other respects. Besides, we may well believe that there was originally, and during the Mosaic period, extreme difficulty in instructing men on those high themes concerning the invisible and spiritual, as may be inferred from the rooted and lasting propensity of the Israelites to visible symbols and material images, and from the limited prevalence of the clearer inculcations of the gospel down to the present day. Men did not and do not like to retain G.o.d in their knowledge.
Hence the language of our Saviour in teaching the Divine unity and spirituality, and the distinction, offices and relations of the Persons of the G.o.dhead. He taught that G.o.d is a Spirit, invisible, infinite, eternal, unchangeable; of himself, that he came out from G.o.d; came forth from the invisible to the visible world; that he should withdraw from the visible to the invisible, so as not to be seen; that he should afterwards visibly reappear; that G.o.d the Father sent him; that the power which he exercised in his miracles was a divine attribute, and proved his divinity; that those who witnessed his miracles, witnessed the exercise of the power of the invisible Deity, which was the power of the Father who had sent him, as well as his own; and therefore they saw the Father in the same works in which they saw him; for in respect to their nature as divine, He and the Father were one.
But even his disciples did not at first understand his meaning. "Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known _me_, Philip? He that hath seen _me_ hath seen the Father." That is, I act officially, exercising the power of the Deity, which is delegated to me by the Father. He who sees in my works a demonstration of my personality and divinity, sees at the same time in those works the only outward and visible demonstration that can be made to men of the personality and divinity of the Father. The power which I exercise is possessed by me in common with the Father, though personally and officially exercised by me. That power is a divine attribute, and in respect to it as an attribute, I and the Father are one.
To confirm this instruction, he promises to do for his disciples what they should ask of the Father in his name; and informs them that he should leave them, as to his visible presence, and go the Father, and that he would manifest himself to them by the official personal agency of the Holy Spirit, whom the Father would send in his name, to dwell with them, be in them, show them the things which respected himself, teach them all things, and bring all things to their remembrance. John xiv.
Continuing to instruct them on this subject, in the two next chapters, he says, "When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not that I will pray the Father for you; for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from G.o.d. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world and go to the Father. A little while, and ye shall not see me; and again a little while, and ye shall see me." Such was his mode of teaching the distinction of Persons in the G.o.dhead--the doctrine of the Trinity.
The apostles were slow to learn these truths concerning the divine Persons respectively, and their offices and relations. They expected in the Messiah a temporal deliverer, who should a.s.sume the government of their nation, and continue personally and visibly among them. In certain respects they appear not to have understood his character till after his ascension, nor till after the Spirit had enlightened and convinced them that the Christ who had been crucified was indeed the Lord of glory, Jehovah, the Elohe of Abraham, in whom Abraham and David believed unto justification. Being at length fully satisfied of this, they testified it to the Jews on the day of Pentecost, and subsequently, with overwhelming effect; for the people being also convinced and cut to the heart, cried, Men and brethren, what shall we do? In their testimony to this end they declared to the Jews that Jesus whom they had crucified was both the Lord (Jehovah) and the Christ; and quoted David as saying concerning him, "I foresaw Jehovah always before me."
Subsequently the apostles, more fully instructed in "the mystery of _G.o.d_, and of the _Father_, and of _the Christ_," Col. ii., more clearly distinguished the Persons of the Trinity in all that concerned their relations to the work of redemption; though, conformably to the Hebrew usage, they often, as the context shows, designated the Mediator under the name of _G.o.d_, while they also by that name referred to the Father and to the one invisible Deity. Thus, speaking of the Christ, Paul says, "Who is over all, G.o.d blessed for ever." Rom. ix. 5. Again: "There is one G.o.d, and one Mediator between G.o.d and men, the man Christ Jesus." 1 Tim. ii. 5. And, treating of the economy of grace, and the gifts bestowed on the Church by the Redeemer, he says: "There is one Spirit, one Lord, one G.o.d and Father of all." Eph. iv. 4-6. See also the doxologies, and the formulas of grace and peace introductory to the Epistles.
These observations and references may, perhaps, sufficiently show the occasion there was for the reiterated statements, at the opening of the New Dispensation, _that no man had seen the Father_, and that he was declared and made known only by the Son. The Jews, to whom these things were said, were familiar with the Scriptures which record the visible appearances of Jehovah, the Elohe of Abraham. The first thing, as has been observed, that was necessary, on his appearance in human nature, was to convince those who had seen and heard him that he was the same personally and officially as He who appeared to and conversed and covenanted with the patriarchs, and dwelt with the Church in the wilderness and in the first temple. He was accordingly from the first, by inspired direction, designated by names of the same import as the Jehovah and Immanuel of the earlier dispensation; and he himself appealed to the ancient Scriptures, as testifying of him. The apostles referred to him as the Jehovah of the Old Testament; and Stephen says, that Moses "was in the Church in the wilderness, with _The Messenger_ who spoke to him in mount Sinai." Acts vii.
The Shekina, and all visible Divine appearances, having long been discontinued, the Jews seem not to have expected any recurrence of the like, or of a.n.a.logous interpositions. Their religion consisted in a formal observance of rites and traditions, and a blind reliance on their being descendants of Abraham; and in the Messiah, whom they desired and expected, they looked only for a human chieftain, a temporal deliverer from the Roman yoke. Their notions of the Divine Being, the invisible Deity, do not appear to have differed essentially from those common to their descendants ever since. They appear, indeed, to have degenerated so far from the ancients, as to have retained no ideas of a distinction of Persons in the G.o.dhead. When they spoke of G.o.d as their Father, they had reference only to the invisible Deity as their Creator. They were alike dest.i.tute of the faith of Abraham and of all correct knowledge of Jehovah, the promised Seed, the Messenger, the personal Word. The common people were as sheep without a shepherd, and their teachers as blind leaders of the blind. "We all, says Trypho, expect a Messiah to be born, that will be man _of man_." Brown"s Justin Martyr, section 49.
Evidences to almost any extent might be easily adduced to show that the Jews of our Saviour"s time had generally, as a people, lost or perverted by their traditions the knowledge which their ancient predecessors possessed, were blind to the meaning of their own Scriptures, and were plunged in gross and inveterate errors.
Their errors soon began to be widely propagated by Judaizing teachers of Christianity, and by Gentile heretics; and with respect to the teachings of the Old Testament concerning the Creator, the Messiah, mediation, the Unity, Trinity, and other subjects, became at an early period extensively prevalent. The Gnosticism which, under Cerinthus and others, a.s.sailed the Jewish converts in the apostles" days, and was propagated during that and several succeeding ages, under many leaders, and with various modifications, was a compound of Oriental philosophy and Judaizing infidelity. To that, in its original form, succeeded, in the second century, the modifications of the Asiatic and Egyptian sects, and the heresies of the Monarchins, or Patripa.s.sians; the sects of Theodotus, Artemon, Hermogenes and others; in the third, the Manichaeans, the Sabellians, and the followers of Paul of Samosata; and in the fourth, the Arians, Semiarians, Pelagians, and others, which, with an occasional change of name, have come down to the present day, and const.i.tute, in relation to the leading doctrines and object of the Holy Scriptures, one comprehensive heresy, of which the cardinal feature is a denial or derogation of what belongs to the official Person, character, and works of the Mediator. In the controversies to which those heresies gave occasion, owing to the nature of the questions which were discussed, the character and objects of the parties brought into conflict, the want of familiarity with the theology of the Hebrew Scriptures on the part of the orthodox, Gentile controvertists; owing to these and the like causes, the ascription, common in the patriarchal, Mosaic, and prophetic history, and in the first period of Christianity, of all the works of creation and providence to the official mediatorial Person, was gradually discontinued, and at length wholly dropped, even by those who believed in his divinity.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Continuation of the subject of the foregoing Chapter--Reference to the Heresies, respecting the Creator, of the three first and ensuing centuries.