Commentary on Romans; Systematic Theology

In the Epistles to the Corinthians, Christ is represented, (1.) As the proper object of religious homage. All believers are represented as his worshippers. (1 Cor. i. 2.) (2.) As the source of spiritual life. (1 Cor. i. 4-9, 30, 31.) (3.) As the Lord of all Christians and the Lord of glory. (1 Cor. ii. 8.) (4.) As creator of the universe (1 Cor. viii. 6), di hou ta panta. (5.) As the Jehovah of the Old Testament, who led the Israelites through the wilderness. (1 Cor. x. 1-13.) (6.) As the giver of spiritual gifts. (1 Cor. xii.) (7.) As the Lord from heaven to whom the universe (ta panta) is subject. (1 Cor. xv. 25.) (8.) A life-giving Spirit (pneuma zoopoioun), i.e., a Spirit having life in Himself. and a source of life to others. (1 Cor. xv. 45.) (9.) The proper object of supreme love, whom not to love, justly subjects the soul to eternal death. (1 Cor. xvi. 22.) (10.) The object of prayer (1 Cor. xvi. 23), from whom grace is to be sought. (11.) He gives success in preaching the gospel, causing his ministers to triumph. (2 Cor. ii. 14.) (12.) The vision of his glory transforms the soul into his likeness. (2 Cor. iii. 17, 18.) (13.) In his face is the glory of God, to which those only are blind who are lost. (2 Cor. iv. 3-6.) (14.) His presence, or being with Him, constitutes the believers heaven. (2 Cor. v. 1-8.) (15.) Before his judgment-seat all men are to be arraigned. (2 Cor. v. 10.) (16.) His love is the highest motive to action. (2 Cor. v. 14.)

(1.) Paul says that he was an Apostle not by the will of man, but by Jesus Christ. (i. 1.) (2.) The conversion of the soul is effected by the knowledge of Christ as the Son of God. (ii. 16.) (3.) Spiritual life is maintained by faith of which Christ is the object. (ii. 20, 21.) (4.) Christ lives in us, as God is said to dwell in his people. (ii. 20.) (5.) He was the object of Abraham's faith. (iii. 6-9.) (6.) He was Abraham's seed in whom all nations are blessed. (iii. 16.) (7.) By faith in Him we become the sons of God. (iii. 26.) (8.) The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Christ. (iv. 6.) (9.) His will is our law. (vi. 2.) (10.) His grace or favour the source of all good. (vi. 18.)

(1.) In Christ and under Him all the objects of God's redeeming love are to be united in one harmonious whole. (i. 10.) (2.) In Him we have eternal life, or are made the heirs of God. (i. 11-14.) (3.) He is exalted above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, i.e., above all rational creatures. (i. 21.) (4.) In Him we are quickened, or raised from the death of sin, made partakers of spiritual life, and exalted to heaven. (ii. 1-6.) (5.) In iii. 9, God is said to have created all things by Jesus Christ. (The text, however, in that passage is somewhat doubtful.) (6.) He fills the universe. (i. 23, and iv. 10.) (7.) He is the head of the Church, from whom it derives its life. (iv. 16.) (8.) He sanctifies the Church. (v. 26.) (9.) The discharge of all social duties is enforced by the consideration of the authority of Christ. We are to serve men as doing service to Him. (vi. 1-9.)

In Philippians, besides the usual recognition of Christ as the source and giver of grace and peace, which comprehend all spiritual blessings, and the acknowledgment of Him as the end of our being (i. 21, 22), we have in ii. 6-11 the clearest declaration of the divinity of Christ. It is said, (1.) That He "was (or existed, huparchon) in the form of God," i.e., was God both as to nature and manifestation. He could not be the one without being the other. The word morphe may mean either the mode of manifestation, that which appears, as when it is said "the king of heaven appeared on earth en morphe anthropou;" or the nature or essence (phusis or ousia) itself. The latter view is adopted by most of the fathers. The former, however, is more in accordance with the common usage of the word, and with the immediate context. He who existed in the form of God, took upon Him the form of a servant (morphen doulou), i.e., the real condition of a servant. (2.) He is declared to be equal with God. The isa einai theo he did not, consider as an harpagmon, i.e., an act of robbery, or an unjust assumption. He was fully entitled to claim equality with God. (3.) This truly divine person assumed the fashion of a man, which is explained by saying He was found "in the likeness of men." He appeared in form, carriage, language, mode of thinking, speaking, feeling, and acting, like other men. He was not purus putus homo, a mere man, but "God incarnate," God manifest in the flesh. (4.) This divine person, clothed in man's nature, humbled Himself even unto death, even to the death of the cross. (5.) Therefore He (not God, or the divine nature in Christ, but the Theanthropos), is exalted above every name that is named, "that at the name of Jesus (i.e., the name of the Theanthropos, as it is He as a divine person clothed in the nature of man, who is the object of worship), every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth." This is an exhaustive amplification. It includes the whole rational creation, from the highest archangel to the weakest saint; all, all that have life acknowledge Christ to be what God alone can be, their supreme and absolute Lord. It is because Christ is and has done what is represented, that the Apostle says, in the following chapter, that He counted all things as nothing for the knowledge of Christ, and that his only desire was to be found in Him and clothed in his righteousness. This divine Redeemer is to come again, and "shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself. (iii. 21.)

Colossians i. 15-20, is expressly designed to set forth the true Godhead of Christ in opposition to the errors springing from the emanation theory, which had already begun to prevail in the churches of Asia Minor. This passage sets forth the relation of Christ, first to God, and secondly to the universe, and thirdly to the Church. Here, as in so many other places of Scripture, the predicates of the Logos asarkos and of the Logos ensarkos, are mingled together. As in Heb. i. 2, 3, the Son is said to have created all things, and to be the brightness of the Father's glory, and also to have made purification for sin; so here part of what is said belongs to the Logos as existing from eternity, and part belongs to Him as clothed in our nature. It was the Logos asarkos who is declared to be the image of the invisible God and creator of all things; and it is the Logos ensarkos who is declared to be the head of the Church. The relation of Christ to God, in this passage is expressed, (1.) By the words just quoted, "He is the image of the invisible God." He is so related to God that He reveals what God is, so that those who see Him, see God, those who know Him, know God, and those who hear Him, hear God. He is the brightness of God's glory, and his express image. (2.) His relation to God is also expressed by saying that He is begotten from eternity, or the only begotten Son. The words prototokos pases ktiseos are indeed variously explained. By Socinians they are made to mean that He was the head of the new dispensation; by Arians that He was the first created of all rational creatures; by many orthodox interpreters trwto, tokoj is taken in its secondary sense, of head or chief. They therefore understand the Apostle to say that Christ is the ruler or head over the whole creation. All these interpretations, however, are inconsistent with the proper meaning of the words, with the context, and with the analogy of Scripture. Prototokos means born before. What Christ is said to have been born before, is expressed by pases ktiseos. He was born (or begotten) before any or every creature, i.e., before creation, or from eternity. All the arguments adduced in a preceding chapter in proof of the eternal generation of the Son, are arguments in favour of this interpretation. Besides, the Arian interpretation is inconsistent with the meaning of the words. That interpretation assumes that the genitive pases ktiseos is to be taken partitively so that Christ is said to be a part of the creation, the first of creatures, as He is said to be the first of those who rose from the dead, when He is called prototokos ton nekron. But pasa ktisis does not mean the whole creation, as indicating the class or category to which Christ belongs, but every creature, as indicating a relation or comparison; Christ is the first begotten as to every creature, i.e., begotten before any creature (i.e., eternally, according to the constant usage of Scripture, for what is before creation is eternal.) Besides, the connection requires this interpretation. The Apostle proves that Christ is the image of the invisible God, and the prototokos pases ktiseos by an argument which proves that He cannot be a creature; and therefore the birth of which he speaks must be before time. Secondly, the relation of Christ to the universe is expressed in this passage by saying, (1.) That He is the Creator of all things. This is amplified, as the all things are declared to include all that are in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, rational and irrational, however exalted, even thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers; that is, the whole hierarchy of the spiritual world. (2.) He is not only the author but the end of the creation, for all things were not only created by Him, but for Him. (3.) He upholds all things; by Him all things consist, i.e., are preserved in being, life, and order. Thirdly, Christ is the head of the Church, the source of life and grace to all its members. For in Him "all fulness," the plenitude of divine blessings dwells. In chapter ii. 3, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (i.e., all knowledge or omniscience) are said to dwell in Christ; and in ii. 9, that He is filled with "the fulness of the Godhead." This is very different from the pleroma mentioned in i. 19, where the Apostle is speaking of what Beza calls "cumulatissima omnium divinarum rerum copia, ex qua, tanquam inexhausto fonte, omnes gratiæ in corpus pro cujusque membri modulo deriventur;"¹ but here the reference is to the divine being, nature, or essence itself, to pleroma tes theotetos. The word theotes is abstract of theos as theiotes is of theios; the former means Godhead, that which makes God, God; the latter means divinity, that which renders divine. The entire plenitude of the divine essence (not a mere emanation of that essence as the rising sect of the Gnostics taught), dwells (katoikei permanently abides, it is no transient manifestation) in Him bodily, somatikos, invested with a body. The Godhead in its fulness is incarnate in Christ. He is therefore, not merely theos but ho theos in the highest sense. More than Paul says cannot be said.

ln Paul's pastoral epistles to Timothy and Titus, besides the ordinary recognition of the divinity of Christ found in almost every page of the New Testament, there are four passages in which, at least according to the common text and the most natural interpretation, he is directly called God. Even 1 Tim. i. 1, kat' epitagen Theou soteros hemon kai Kuriou Iesou Christou, may be naturally rendered, "according to the command of God our Saviour, even our Lord Jesus Christ." This is in accordance with the parallel passages in Titus i. 3, "according to the commandment of God our Saviour;" and Titus ii. 13, "of the great God our Saviour Jesus Christ." In this latter passage there is no reason, as Winer and De Wette acknowledge, for questioning that Christ is called the great God, except what they regard as the Christology of the New Testament. They do not admit that Christ is the great God according to the doctrine of Paul, and therefore they are unwilling to admit that this passage contains that declaration. But if, as we have seen, and as the whole Church believes, not only Paul but all the Apostles and prophets, abundantly teach that the Messiah is truly God as well as truly man, there is no force in this objection. Violence must be done to the ordinary rules of language if tou megalou theou kai soteros are not referred to the same subject; inasmuch as theou has the article and soteros is without it. The fair meaning of the words is, "The Great God who is our Saviour Jesus Christ." This interpretation is also demanded, (1.) By the context. Jesus Christ is the subject of discourse. Of Him it is said that He is the great God our Saviour, who gave Himself for us. (2.) Because the epiphaneia, appearance (here in reference to the second advent), is repeatedly used in the New Testament of Christ, but never of God as such, or of God the Father. See 2 Tim. i. 10; 2 Thess. ii. 8; 1 Tim. vi. 14; 2 Tim. iv. 1, 8. (3.) The position of the words soteros hemon before Iesou Christou. If "God" and "Saviour" referred to different persons the natural order of the words would be, "The appearance of the great God and Jesus Christ our Saviour;" and not as it is, "The appearance of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." Great God and Saviour obviously belong to the same person in 1 Tim. i. 1. "The command of God our Saviour," and in Titus i. 3, "God our Saviour;" and in this place (Tit. ii. 13) that God and Saviour is declared to be Jesus Christ.

The most important passage, however, in these pastoral epistles, is 1 Tim. iii. 16. With regard to that passage it may be remarked, (1.) That it admits of two interpretations. According to the ones the Church is declared to be the pillar and ground of truth, according to the other, the pillar and ground of truth is the great mystery of godliness. The latter is greatly to be preferred as equally consistent with the grammatical structure of the passage, and as far more in harmony with the analogy of Scripture. The pillar and ground of truth, the great fundamental doctrine of the Gospel, is often elsewhere declared to be the doctrine of the manifestation of God in the flesh. On this doctrine all our hopes of salvation rest. (2.) Whatever reading be adopted, whether theos, hos, or ho, all of which appear in different manuscripts, the passage must refer to Christ. He it was who was manifest in the flesh, justified by the Spirit, and received up into glory. (3.) Whatever reading be adopted, the passage assumes or asserts the divinity of our Lord. With the apostolic writers, the doctrine of the incarnation is expressed by saying, that the logos "became flesh" (John i. 14); or, "Christ is come in the flesh" (1 John iv. 2); or, "He who is the brightness of Gods glory "took part of flesh and blood" (Heb. ii. 14); or, He that was "equal with God" was "found in fashion as a man." (Phil. ii. 8.) The same truth, therefore, is expressed, whether we say, "God was manifest in the flesh;" or, "He who was manifest in the flesh;" or, that "the mystery of godliness was manifest in the flesh." (4.) The external authorities are so divided that the most competent editors and critics differ as to what is the original text. For theos we find the great body of the cursive Greek manuscripts and almost all the Greek Fathers. The authority of the Codex Alexandrinus is claimed on both sides. The question there is, whether the letter is Th or O; some say they see distinct traces of the line in the Theta, others say they do not. For hos C, F, G, of the uncial manuscripts, only two of the cursive manuscripts, and the Coptic and Sahidic versions, are quoted. To this must be added the testimony of the very ancient manuscript recently discovered by Tischendorf the text of which has been published under his auspices at St. Petersburg. For ho the uncial manuscript D, the Latin Vulgate and the Latin Fathers are the witnesses. In view of this state of the question, Wetstein, Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles, among the editors, decide for hos. Mill, Matthies, as well as the older editors Erasmus, Beza, the Complutensian, and the later ones, as Knapp and Hahn, retain theos.² (5.) The internal evidence, so far as the perspicuity of the passage and the analogy of Scripture are concerned, are decidedly in favour of the common text. There is something remarkable in the passage; it is brought in apparently as a quotation from a hymn, as some think, or from a confession of faith, as others suppose, at least, as a familiar formula in which the leading truths concerning the manifestation of Christ are concisely stated. (1.) He is God. (2.) He was manifest in the flesh, or became man. (3.) He was justified, i.e., his claims to be regarded as God manifest in the flesh were proved to be just, by the Spirit (i.e., either by the Holy Ghost, or by the pneuma or divine nature revealing itself in Him. Comp. John i. 14). (4.) He was seen of angels. They recognized and served Him. (5.) He was preached unto the Gentiles, as He came to be the Saviour of all men, and not of the Jews only. (6.) He was believed upon as God and Saviour; and (7.) He was received up into glory, where He now lives, reigns, and intercedes.