Chapter 11. In the Old Testament There Was Development in Revelation through the Word.
Chapter 11
1. The Lord has made it clear that it was not only the Prophets, but also many righteous men who through the Spirit foreknew his coming and prayed that they might reach the time when they would see their Lord face-to-face and hear his discourses. To the disciples he said, Many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. How, then, did they long both to hear and to see unless they had foreknowledge of his future coming? And how could they foreknow that unless they had received the foreknowledge from him? And how do the Scriptures testify concerning him unless all things have always been revealed through the Word by one and the same God and manifested to those who believe? For at one time he speaks with his handiwork, at another time he gives the Law, at another time he reproves, at still another time he exhorts, and finally he frees the slave and adopts him as son, and at the proper time bestows the inheritance of imperishability for the perfection of man. Indeed he fashioned him that he might grow and flourish, as Scripture says, Be fruitful and multiply.
2. Further, God differs from man in this, that God makes, but man is made. And he who makes is always the same, but he who is made must receive a beginning and a middle, a growing and maturing. God, again, gives benefits; man receives benefits. God is perfect in every respect, being equal and similar to himself, since he is all light and all mind and all substance and the fount of all good. But man makes progress toward God and receives an increase. In fact, just as God is always the same, so man is found in God and always makes progress toward God. For neither does God ever cease bestowing gifts on man and enriching him, nor does man cease receiving gifts and being enriched by God. Really, man who is grateful to him who made him is the receptacle of his goodness and the product of his glory; on the contrary, the ungrateful man and one who spurns the Fashioner and is not subject to his Word is the receptacle of his just judgment. He [Word] has promised to give a greater amount to those who always bear fruit and who, having the Lord’s silver piece, multiply it. He said, Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master. By this the Lord himself promised the greater amount.
3. So then, just as the Lord promised to those who at present bear fruit to give them the greater amount, according to the gift of his grace but not according to a change of knowledge, since the Lord remains the same, and the same Father is revealed; in like manner, through his coming, one and the same Lord bestows a greater gift of grace on those who come later than on those who lived under the old covenant. In fact, those, too, heard, through the servants, that the King would come, and so rejoiced moderately, in keeping with their hope that he would come. Those, however, who saw him present, and have won freedom and are in possession of his gift, have the greater grace and the more abundant joy, since they rejoice over the King’s presence, as also David says, But my soul shall rejoice in the Lord, and shall be delighted in his salvation. For this reason, too, when he entered Jerusalem, all who were along the way, who, like David, had a strong desire in their soul, recognized their King, spread their garments for him, and decorated the street with green branches, and cried out with great joy and exultation: Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! But there were the envious and wicked stewards who circumvented their inferiors and dominated those who had changeable minds, and so wished that their King had not come. They said to him, Did you not hear what these are saying? The Lord gave this answer, Yes, have you never read, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings you have brought perfect praise?” Thus he showed that what had been predicted of God’s Son by David was fulfilled in himself; namely, he pointed out that those men did not know the power of Scripture or the economy of God, and that he who was announced by the Prophets is Christ, whose name is praised in all the earth, since he brings perfect praise out of the mouth of babes and sucklings for his Father. That is why his majesty is elevated above the heavens.
4. If, therefore, the same one, Our Lord Jesus Christ, is present who was heralded by the Prophets, and if his coming bestows the fuller grace and the greater gift on those who accepted him, it is evident that the Father, too, is the same one who was proclaimed by the Prophets, and that the Son at his coming did not bring the knowledge of another Father but of the same one who was heralded from the beginning. From him, too, the Son brought liberty for those who rightfully and readily and wholeheartedly serve him. On the contrary, there are the scoffers and those who are not submissive to God but for the sake of praise from men observe outward purifications—which were handed down as types of future things, as if the Law sketched some shadow and delineated the eternal by the temporal, the heavenly by the earthly—they imagined that they observed more than was prescribed, as though they were more diligent than God himself, whereas within they were full of hypocrisy and of covetousness, and of every malice. For those he brought eternal perdition, cutting them off from life.