CHAPTER 6.
REDEMPTION FOR MAN LOST TO BE SOUGHT IN Christ.
The parts of this chapter are, I. The excellence of the doctrine of
Christ the Redeemer--a doctrine always entertained by the Church, sec.
1. II. Christ, the Mediator in both dispensations, was offered to the
faith of the pious Israelites and people of old, as is plain from the
institution of sacrifice, the calling of Abraham's family, and the
elevation of David and his posterity, sec. 2. III. Hence the
consolation, strength, hope, and confidence of the godly under the Law,
Christ being offered to them in various ways by their heavenly Father.
Sections.
1. The knowledge of God the Creator of no avail without faith in Christ
the Redeemer. First reason. Second reason strengthened by the testimony
of an Apostle. Conclusion. This doctrine entertained by the children of
God in all ages from the beginning of the world. Error of throwing open
heaven to the heathen, who know nothing of Christ. The pretexts for
this refuted by passages of Scripture.
2. God never was propitious to the ancient Israelites without Christ
the Mediator. First reason founded on the institution of sacrifice.
Second reason founded on the calling of Abraham. Third reason founded
on the elevation of David's family to regal dignity, and confirmed by
striking passages of Scripture.
3. Christ the solace ever promised to the afflicted; the banner of
faith and hope always erected. This confirmed by various passages of
Scripture.
4. The Jews taught to have respect to Christ. This teaching sanctioned
by our Saviour himself. The common saying, that God is the object of
faith, requires to be explained and modified. Conclusion of this
discussion concerning Christ. No saving knowledge of God in the
heathen.
1. The whole human race having been undone in the person of Adam, the
excellence and dignity of our origin, as already described, is so far
from availing us, that it rather turns to our greater disgrace, until
God, who does not acknowledge man when defiled and corrupted by sin as
his own work, appear as a Redeemer in the person of his only begotten
Son. Since our fall from life unto death, all that knowledge of God the
Creator, of which we have discoursed, would be useless, were it not
followed up by faith, holding forth God to us as a Father in Christ.
The natural course undoubtedly was, that the fabric of the world should
be a school in which we might learn piety, and from it pass to eternal
life and perfect felicity. But after looking at the perfection beheld
wherever we turn our eye, above and below, we are met by the divine
malediction, which, while it involves innocent creatures in our fault,
of necessity fills our own souls with despair. For although God is
still pleased in many ways to manifest his paternal favour towards us,
we cannot, from a mere survey of the world, infer that he is a Father.
Conscience urging us within, and showing that sin is a just ground for
our being forsaken, will not allow us to think that God accounts or
treats us as sons. In addition to this are our sloth and ingratitude.
Our minds are so blinded that they cannot perceive the truth, and all
our senses are so corrupt that we wickedly rob God of his glory.
Wherefore, we must conclude with Paul, "After that in the wisdom of God
the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe," (1 Cor. 1:21). By the "wisdom of
God," he designates this magnificent theatre of heaven and earth
replenished with numberless wonders, the wise contemplation of which
should have enabled us to know God. But this we do with little profit;
and, therefore, he invites us to faith in Christ,--faith which, by a
semblance of foolishness, disgusts the unbeliever. Therefore, although
the preaching of the cross is not in accordance with human wisdom, we
must, however, humbly embrace it if we would return to God our Maker,
from whom we are estranged, that he may again become our Father. It is
certain that after the fall of our first parent, no knowledge of God
without a Mediator was effectual to salvation. Christ speaks not of his
own age merely, but embraces all ages, when he says "This is life
eternal that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ,
whom thou hast sent," (John 17:3). The more shameful therefore is the
presumption of those who throw heaven open to the unbelieving and
profane, in the absence of that grace which Scripture uniformly
describes as the only door by which we enter into life. Should any
confine our Saviour's words to the period subsequent to the
promulgation of the Gospel, the refutation is at hand; since on a
ground common to all ages and nations, it is declared, that those who
are estranged from God, and as such, are under the curse, the children
of wrath, cannot be pleasing to God until they are reconciled. To this
we may add the answer which our Saviour gave to the Samaritan woman "Ye
worship ye know not what; we know what we worship: for salvation is of
the Jews," (John 4:22). By these words, he both charges every Gentile
religion with falsehood, and assigns the reason--viz. that under the
Law the Redeemer was promised to the chosen people only, and that,
consequently, no worship was ever pleasing to God in which respect was
not had to Christ. Hence also Paul affirms, that all the Gentiles were
"without God," and deprived of the hope of life. Now, since John
teaches that there was life in Christ from the beginning, and that the
whole world had lost it (John 1:4), it is necessary to return to that
fountain; And, accordingly, Christ declares that inasmuch as he is a
propitiator, he is life. And, indeed, the inheritance of heaven belongs
to none but the sons of God (John 15:6). Now, it were most incongruous
to give the place and rank of sons to any who have not been engrafted
into the body of the only begotten Son. And John distinctly testifies
that those become the sons of God who believe in his name. But as it is
not my intention at present formally to discuss the subject of faith in
Christ, it is enough to have thus touched on it in passing.
2. Hence it is that God never showed himself propitious to his ancient
people, nor gave them any hope of grace without a Mediator. I say
nothing of the sacrifices of the Law, by which believers were plainly
and openly taught that salvation was not to be found anywhere but in
the expiation which Christ alone completed. All I maintain is that the
prosperous and happy state of the Church was always founded in the
person of Christ. For although God embraced the whole posterity of
Abraham in his covenant, yet Paul properly argues (Gal. 3:16), that
Christ was truly the seed in which all the nations of the earth were to
be blessed, since we know that all who were born of Abraham, according
to the flesh, were not accounted the seed. To omit Ishmael and others,
how came it that of the two sons of Isaac, the twin brothers, Esau and
Jacob, while yet in the womb, the one was chosen and the other
rejected? Nay, how came it that the first-born was rejected, and the
younger alone admitted? Moreover, how happens it that the majority are
rejected? It is plain, therefore, that the seed of Abraham is
considered chiefly in one head, and that the promised salvation is not
attained without coming to Christ, whose office it is to gather
together those which were scattered abroad. Thus the primary adoption
of the chosen people depended on the grace of the Mediator. Although it
is not expressed in very distinct terms in Moses, it, however, appears
to have been commonly known to all the godly. For before a king was
appointed over the Israelites, Hannah, the mother of Samuel, describing
the happiness of the righteous, speaks thus in her song, "He shall give
strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed;" meaning by
these words, that God would bless his Church. To this corresponds the
prediction, which is afterwards added, "I will raise me up a faithful
priest, and he shall walk before mine anointed for ever," (1 Sam. 2:10,
35). And there can be no doubt that our heavenly Father intended that a
living image of Christ should be seen in David and his posterity.
Accordingly, exhorting the righteous to fear Him, he bids them "Kiss
the Son," (Psalm 2:12). Corresponding to this is the passage in the
Gospel, "He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father,"
(John 5:23). Therefore, though the kingdom was broken up by the revolt
of the ten tribes, yet the covenant which God had made in David and his
successors behaved to stand, as is also declared by his Prophets,
"Howbeit I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand: but I will
make him prince all the days of his life for David my servant's sake,"
(1 Kings 11:34). The same thing is repeated a second and third time. It
is also expressly said, "I will for this afflict the seed of David, but
not for ever," (1 Kings 11:39). Some time afterwards it was said,
"Nevertheless, for David's sake did the Lord his God give him a lamp in
Jerusalem, to set up his son after him, and to establish Jerusalem," (1
Kings 15:4). And when matters were bordering on destruction, it was
again said, "Yet the Lord would not destroy Judah for David his
servant's sake, as he had promised to give him alway a light, and to
his children," (2 Kings 8:19).
The sum of the whole comes to this--David, all others being excluded,
was chosen to be the person in whom the good pleasure of the Lord
should dwell; as it is said elsewhere, "He forsook the tabernacle of
Shiloh;" "Moreover, he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not
the tribe of Ephraim;" "But chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion
which he loved;" "He chose David also his servant, and took him from
the sheep folds: from following the ewes great with young he brought
him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance," (Ps. 78:60,
67, 70, 71). In fine, God, in thus preserving his Church, intended that
its security and salvation should depend on Christ as its head.
Accordingly, David exclaims, "The Lord is their strength, and he is the
saving strength of his anointed;" and then prays "Save thy people, and
bless thine inheritance;" intimating, that the safety of the Church was
indissolubly connected with the government of Christ. In the same sense
he elsewhere says, "Save, Lord: let the king hear us when we call,"
(Ps. 20:9). These words plainly teach that believers, in applying for
the help of God, had their sole confidence in this--that they were
under the unseen government of the King. This may be inferred from
another psalm, "Save now, I beseech thee O Lord: Blessed be he that
cometh in the name of the Lord," (Ps. 118:25, 26). Here it is obvious
that believers are invited to Christ, in the assurance that they will
be safe when entirely in his hand. To the same effect is another
prayer, in which the whole Church implores the divine mercy "Let thy
hand be upon the Man of thy right hand, upon the Son of man, whom thou
madest strong (or best fitted) for thyself," (Ps. 80:17). For though
the author of the psalm laments the dispersion of the whole nations he
prays for its revival in him who is sole Head. After the people were
led away into captivity, the land laid waste, and matters to appearance
desperate, Jeremiah, lamenting the calamity of the Church, especially
complains, that by the destruction of the kingdom the hope of believers
was cut off; "The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was
taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live
among the heathen," (Lam. 4:20). From all this it is abundantly plain,
that as the Lord cannot be propitious to the human race without a
Mediator, Christ was always held forth to the holy Fathers under the
Law as the object of their faith.
3. Moreover when comfort is promised in affliction, especially when the
deliverance of the Church is described, the banner of faith and hope in
Christ is unfurled. "Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy
people, even for salvation with thine anointed," says Habakkuk (3:13).
And whenever mention is made in the Prophets of the renovation of the
Church, the people are directed to the promise made to David, that his
kingdom would be for ever. And there is nothing strange in this, since
otherwise there would have been no stability in the covenant. To this
purpose is the remarkable prophecy in Isaiah 7:14. After seeing that
the unbelieving king Ahab repudiated what he had testified regarding
the deliverance of Jerusalem from siege and its immediate safety, he
passes as it were abruptly to the Messiah, "Behold, a virgin shall
conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel;" intimating
indirectly, that though the king and his people wickedly rejected the
promise offered to them, as if they were bent on causing the faith of
God to fail, the covenant would not be defeated--the Redeemer would
come in his own time. In fine, all the prophets, to show that God was
placable, were always careful to bring forward that kingdom of David,
on which redemption and eternal salvation depended. Thus in Isaiah it
is said, "I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure
mercies of David. Behold, I have given him for a witness to the
people," (Isa. 55:3, 4); intimating, that believers, in calamitous
circumstances, could have no hope, had they not this testimony that God
would be ready to hear them. In the same way, to revive their drooping
spirits, Jeremiah says, "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I
will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and
prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his
days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely," (Jer. 23:5,
6). In Ezekiel also it is said, "I will set up one Shepherd over them,
and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and
he shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God, and my
servant David a prince among them: I the Lord have spoken it. And I
will make with them a covenant of peace," (Ezek. 34:23, 24, 25). And
again, after discoursing of this wondrous renovation, he says, "David
my servant shall be king over them: and they all shall have one
shepherd." "Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace with them; it
shall be an everlasting covenant with them," (Ezek. 37:24-26). I select
a few passages out of many, because I merely wish to impress my readers
with the fact, that the hope of believers was ever treasured up in
Christ alone. All the other prophets concur in this. Thus Hosea, "Then
shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered
together, and appoint themselves one head," (Hosea 1:11). This he
afterwards explains in clearer terms, "Afterward shall the children of
Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king,"
(Hosea 3:5). Micas, also speaking of the return of the people, says
expressly, "Their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head
of them," (Micah 2:13). So Amos, in predicting the renovation of the
people, says "In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that
is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up the
ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old," (Amos 9:11); in
other words, the only banner of salvation was, the exaltation of the
family of David to regal splendour, as fulfilled in Christ. Hence, too,
Zechariah, as nearer in time to the manifestation of Christ, speaks
more plainly, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter
of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having
salvation," (Zech. 9:9). This corresponds to the passage already quoted
from the Psalms, "The Lord is their strength, and he is the saving
health of their anointed." Here salvation is extended from the head to
the whole body.
4. By familiarising the Jews with these prophecies, God intended to
teach them, that in seeking for deliverance, they should turn their
eyes directly towards Christ. And though they had sadly degenerated,
they never entirely lost the knowledge of this general principle, that
God, by the hand of Christ, would be the deliverer of the Church, as he
had promised to David; and that in this way only the free covenant by
which God had adopted his chosen people would be fulfilled. Hence it
was, that on our Saviour's entry into Jerusalem, shortly before his
death, the children shouted, "Hosannah to the son of David," (Mt.
21:9). For there seems to have been a hymn known to all, and in general
use, in which they sung that the only remaining pledge which they had
of the divine mercy was the promised advent of a Redeemer. For this
reason, Christ tells his disciples to believe in him, in order that
they might have a distinct and complete belief in God, "Ye believe in
God, believe also in me," (John 14:1). For although, properly speaking,
faith rises from Christ to the Father, he intimates, that even when it
leans on God, it gradually vanishes away, unless he himself interpose
to give it solid strength. The majesty of God is too high to be scaled
up to by mortals, who creep like worms on the earth. Therefore, the
common saying that God is the object of faith (Lactantius, lib. 4 c.
16), requires to be received with some modification. When Christ is
called the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15), the expression is
not used without cause, but is designed to remind us that we can have
no knowledge of our salvation, until we behold God in Christ. For
although the Jewish scribes had by their false glosses darkened what
the Prophets had taught concerning the Redeemer, yet Christ assumed it
to be a fact, received, as it were, with public consent, that there was
no other remedy in desperate circumstances, no other mode of delivering
the Church than the manifestation of the Mediator. It is true, that the
fact adverted to by Paul was not so generally known as it ought to have
been--viz. that Christ is the end of the Law (Rom. 10:4), though this
is both true, and clearly appears both from the Law and the Prophets. I
am not now, however, treating of faith, as we shall elsewhere have a
fitter place (Book 3 Chap. 2), but what I wish to impress upon my
readers in this way is, that the first step in piety is, to acknowledge
that God is a Father, to defend, govern, and cherish us, until he
brings us to the eternal inheritance of his kingdom; that hence it is
plain, as we lately observed, there is no having knowledge of God
without Christ, and that, consequently, from the beginning of the world
Christ was held forth to all the elect as the object of their faith and
confidence. In this sense, Irenaeus says, that the Father, who is
boundless in himself, is bounded in the Son, because he has
accommodated himself to our capacity, lest our minds should be
swallowed up by the immensity of his glory (Irenaeus, lib. 4 cap. 8).
Fanatics, not attending to this, distort a useful sentiment into an
impious dream, [185] as if Christ had only a share of the Godhead, as a
part taken from a whole; whereas the meaning merely is, that God is
comprehended in Christ alone. The saying of John was always true,
"whosoever denieth the Son, the same has not the Father," (1 John
2:23). For though in old time there were many who boasted that they
worshipped the Supreme Deity, the Maker of heaven and earth, yet as
they had no Mediator, it was impossible for them truly to enjoy the
mercy of God, so as to feel persuaded that he was their Father. Not
holding the head, that is, Christ, their knowledge of God was
evanescent; and hence they at length fell away to gross and foul
superstitions betraying their ignorance, just as the Turks in the
present day, who, though proclaiming, with full throat, that the
Creator of heaven and earth is their God, yet by their rejection of
Christ, substitute an idol in his place.
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[185] French, "reverie infernale."
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They may not represent old style Scofield dispensationalism, but it is dispensational nonetheless. Also, while there are some at SBTS who appear to have some NCT leanings, my guess is that it is more of a mixed bag that includes those who may subscribe to some flavor of dispensationalism and some who are essentially covenantal as well.
