Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Other Quotations from Holy Scripture Adduced in Proof of the Plurality of Persons in the Godhead.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter
XII.—Other Quotations from Holy Scripture Adduced in Proof of the
Plurality of Persons in the Godhead.
If the number of the Trinity also offends you, as
if it were not connected in the simple Unity, I ask you how it is
possible for a Being who is merely and absolutely One and Singular, to
speak in plural phrase, saying, “Let us make man in our own
image, and after our own likeness;”7894
whereas He ought to have said, “Let me make man in my own image,
and after my own likeness,” as being a unique and singular Being?
In the following passage, however, “Behold the man is become as
one of us,”7895
He is either
deceiving or amusing us in speaking plurally, if He is One only and
singular. Or was it to the angels that He spoke, as the Jews interpret
the passage, because these also acknowledge not the Son? Or was it
because He was at once the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, that He
spoke to Himself in plural terms, making Himself plural on that very
account? Nay, it was because He had already His Son close at His side,
as a second Person, His own Word, and a third Person also, the Spirit
in the Word, that He purposely adopted the plural phrase, “Let
us make;” and, “in our image;” and,
“become as one of us.” For with whom did He make
man? and to whom did He make him like? (The answer must be), the Son
on the one hand, who
was one day to put on human nature; and the Spirit on the other, who
was to sanctify man. With these did He then speak, in the Unity of the
Trinity, as with His ministers and witnesses. In the following text
also He distinguishes among the Persons: “So God created man in
His own image; in the image of God created He him.”7896
Why say “image of God?” Why not
“His own image” merely, if He was only one who was the
Maker, and if there was not also One in whose image He made man? But
there was One in whose image God was making man, that is to say,
Christ’s image, who, being one day about to become Man (more
surely and more truly so), had already caused the man to be called His
image, who was then going to be formed of clay—the image and
similitude of the true and perfect Man. But in respect of the
previous works of the world what says the Scripture? Its first
statement indeed is made, when the Son has not yet appeared:
“And God said, Let there be light, and there was
light.”7897
Immediately there
appears the Word, “that true light, which lighteth man on his
coming into the world,”7898
and through Him
also came light upon the world.7899
From that
moment God willed creation to be effected in the Word, Christ being
present and ministering unto Him: and so God created. And God said,
“Let there be a firmament,…and God made the
firmament;”7900
and God also said,
“Let there be lights (in the firmament); and so God made a
greater and a lesser light.”7901
But all the
rest of the created things did He in like manner make, who made the
former ones—I mean the Word of God, “through whom all
things were made, and without whom nothing was made.”7902
Now if He too is God, according to John,
(who says,) “The Word was God,”7903
then you have two Beings—One that commands that the thing be
made, and the Other that executes the order and creates. In what
sense, however, you ought to understand Him to be another, I have
already explained, on the ground of Personality, not of
Substance—in the way of distinction, not of division.7904
| 7904 [Kaye thinks the
Athanasian hymn (so called) was composed by one who had this treatise
always in mind. See p. 526.] | But although I must everywhere hold one only
substance in three coherent and inseparable (Persons), yet I am bound
to acknowledge, from the necessity of the case, that He who issues a
command is different from Him who executes it. For, indeed, He would
not be issuing a command if He were all the while doing the work
Himself, while ordering it to be done by the second.7905
But still He did issue the command, although
He would not have intended to command Himself if He were only one; or
else He must have worked without any command, because He would not have
waited to command Himself.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
