by Octavius Winslow
(continued from page 139)
We now turn to a few more prominent attestations to this doctrine, scattered through the writings of the New Testament. We commence with the evangelist John: in many respects, his testimony is of peculiar weight and importance. It would seem (so minute and clear is his personal description of Christ, placed in the foreground of his Gospel) as though he had been selected to fill the same office as an historian, which the Baptist had done, as the harbinger of our Lord—to proclaim the dignity and pronounce the titles of the Sovereign whom he heralded, and so to elicit on his behalf, those expressions of homage and respect which properly belong to royalty. We may suppose, then, that this evangelical writer would be careful to advance no doctrine, to utter no expression, to record no fact, to lay down no proposition, and to employ no term, which had not first been carefully pondered, and which would not bear the most searching and critical examination. He introduces his inspired book with the stately and majestic air of a man conscious of the sublime and momentous truth he was about to record.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.” John 1:1-3. Here is the precise truth for which we contend, resplendent in its own divine light and glory. It may appear remarkable that the evangelist should employ a term so important, the explanation of which he pauses not a moment to give. But it may not be difficult to assign a reason for this: the term Logos, or Word, would in all probability be familiar to most of the Jews, and to many of the Gentile Christians, as an appellation conveying the idea of a Mediatorial Messiah. Indeed, with regard to the native Jews of Judea, it amounts to more than a bare conjecture, that their frequent use of the phrase The Word of the Lord, was employed with a personal reference, and was intended to designate an intelligent agent, invested with personal attributes; or in other words, that the figure so readily and emphatically introduced by John, was a recognised appellation of the Messiah, and directs the eye at once to Christ, the great MEDIUM of communicating the mind of Jehovah to men, the “one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” The slightest examination of the subsequent portions of this chapter, must convince a mind sincerely in search of truth and yielding to its conviction, that the operations ascribed to the “Word” cannot be predicated of a quality, an attribute, or an action; but find their solution in their application to a real and personal subsistence, even to the ETERNAL Son of God. But let us in a few words deduce the doctrine from the text.
“In the beginning was the Word.” The ETERNITY of Christ is here emphatically declared. In the beginning of the creation of all things was the essential Word, existing, not in the purpose and decree of God, but as a distinct and Divine Person, even the eternal Son; set up in office from everlasting as the Mediator of the Covenant, in whom all the children of the covenant are chosen, blessed, sanctified, and glorified.
“The Word was with God.” Not with angels, not with men; but before men and angels were created—with God essentially—with Him from all eternity with Him in the covenant of redemption, and in the covenant of grace—with Him when He laid the foundation of the earth, and from its dust created man upon it; was with Him as his essential Son, when as man he dwelt and suffered on earth—and with Him now as the exalted Son, the enthroned and glorified Messiah.
“And the Word was God.” Not as a created or a delegated God, both of these senses being equally absurd and contradictory; but “was God” truly, essentially, absolutely, and in the highest sense, Jehovah; “God over all, blessed for evermore.”
“All things were made by him.” Clearly defining his creative power, and so demonstrating his Godhead. “All things,” all worlds, all creatures, “created by him, and for him; for without him was not anything made, that was made.” If, therefore, he made all things, he must have existed “before all things”; consequently, the doctrine of his pre-eternal being is placed beyond a doubt.
In the 14th verse, the Divine nature and pre-existent state of Christ, if not positively asserted, are yet distinctly recognised and clearly deduced. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” Here was evidently the assumption of a nature inferior to a pre-existing and more elevated one. What was that superior nature but the Godhead of Christ, and what the pre-existent state, but his eternity? The essential Word was “made” or became flesh, and “dwelt,” or tabernacled among us, “full of grace and truth.”
Again, John 6:60-62, The whole of the context is an argument employed by Jesus to convince the Jews, not of the divine character of his doctrine, as some have supposed, but of the Divine nature of his person. This, our Lord declared, “came down from heaven,” and was laid as a voluntary sacrifice upon the altar of an ignominious death, “for the life of the world.” The assurance that the Messiah, whom he had announced and proved himself to be, was to pass through so humiliating a life, and to close it by so painful a death, shocked the carnal prejudices, and blasted the earthly hopes of many of his disciples; which error being perceived by Jesus, he immediately sought to remove, by carrying forward their thoughts to his reinstatement amid the glory and to the exercise of all the power and dignity which he had previously possessed, and had voluntarily relinquished. “Many therefore of his disciples when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?“
John 8:58, “Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.” Here is a passage that would seem to place the doctrine we plead for, beyond the region of doubt. No ingenuity of criticism, no effort of reasoning, can make it other than what it is—an honest and clear declaration of the pre-existence of Jesus, at least two thousand years before his incarnation. In order that the full force of the passage may be felt, let us take a rapid glance at the context.
The occasion which drew forth this remarkable assertion of our Lord, appears to have been two charges alleged against him by the Jews, founded upon the following words that he had uttered: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” John 8:51. To which the Jews replied, “Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?” The two charges thus brought against Christ, are self-exaltation, and an assumption of superiority to Abraham their father. Both of these accusations, Jesus condescendingly but promptly met. The first he positively and solemnly denied; he declared that with the honour he possessed, he had been invested of the Father, whom they acknowledged as their God. “Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God.” John 8:54. To the second, with all the calm dignity of conscious truth, he replied, that Abraham, guided by a supernatural light, had acknowledged his Divine superiority; and though he beheld the promise of his coming through a long period of time, yet in the exercise of a strong and far-reaching faith, he saw his day of incarnate glory, and in the prospect of his mediatorial reign was filled with holy exultation and joy. “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.” John 8:56. The Jews not perceiving that he spake of an anticipative vision, and eager to impeach his veracity, grounded upon the apparent impossibility of what he had asserted, exclaimed, “Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?” John 8:57. This question brought the matter to an issue. No alternative was left our Lord, but either to admit or deny the doctrine in dispute. At their bar he was standing as a witness, either for or against himself. His pre-existence had been arraigned, his Godhead denied; both of which it was necessary for him either to deny or affirm. Not a moment does he hesitate: “Jesus said unto them. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM.” The Jews regarding his words as a solemn declaration of his eternity and Godhead, kindled with indignation and wrath, “took up stones to cast at him,” John 8:59, “because he said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.” John 5:18.
Dear reader, what a wondrous declaration is this! what a glorious and precious truth does it involve! Are you a believer in Jesus? Is he all your salvation, your acceptance, your hope and desire? Then cast the anchor of your faith deeply, firmly here; thou shalt find it an eternal rock. Weak faith you may have, and doubtful faith numbers have; but here is the ground of faith, respecting which there can be neither weakness nor doubt. Is it an Almighty Saviour that you want? Behold Him! “Before Abraham was, I AM.” Oh, what a foundation for a poor sinful worm of the dust to build upon! What a stable truth for faith in its weakest form to deal with,—to have a glorious incarnate I AM for an atoning sacrifice—an I AM for a Redeemer—an I AM for a Surety—an I AM as a Day’s-man between God and the soul—an I AM as an advocate, an unceasing Intercessor at the court of heaven, pleading each moment his own atoning merits—an I AM as the centre in whom all the promises are “yea and amen”—an I AM as a “Brother born for adversity”—an I AM “as a very present help in every time of trouble!” This is the answer which faith receives to its trembling and anxious interrogatories. To each and all touching his faithfulness, his tenderness, his long-suffering, his fulness, and his all-sufficiency, Jesus answers, “I AM.” “Enough, Lord,” replies the believer, “on this I can live, on this I can die.”
The following passages, either asserting or implying the doctrine of Christ’s pre-existence, are quoted without comment, the reader being left to form his own prayerful judgement of their definite and obvious meaning. “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.” John 16:28. “He is before all things, and by him all things consist.” Col. 1:17. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.” 1 John 1:1,2. Thus clearly has the Holy Ghost testified to the foundation-truth of all experimental Christianity. If any doubt yet lingers in the mind of the reader, touching the truth of this doctrine, then should the existence of that doubt lay him in the dust, causing him to tremble lest he should be found to reject the counsel of God against himself, and constraining him to seek, and to seek until it is imparted and experienced—the teaching of that blessed Spirit whose office it is to take of the things of Jesus, and show them unto us.