CHAPTER VII: Christ hath repaired the loss of honour which God sustained by sin.
4thly, As for loss of service, to repair it, 'He took on him the form of a servant,' Phil. 2:7. And such a servant he was, as was not to have been hired amongst all the creatures. They all could not do the work that he did; 'The government of the whole world is upon his shoulders,' Isa. 9:6. He easeth his Father of it for the present, and when he hath brought him in infinite revenues of glory, he will at last
'deliver up the kingdom to him,' 1 Cor. 15:24, with a greater surplusage than else would have been had out of that begun course of providence taken up at the creation. And if you will not reckon that as part of satisfaction, yet consider the service he did in the priest's office, wherein God acknowledged him his servant. He despatched more work in those thirty-three years wherein he lived, yea, in those three hours wherein he suffered, than ever was or will be done by all creatures to eternity. It was a good six-days work when the world was made; and he had a principal hand in that, neither hath he been idle since; 'I and my Father work hitherto,' says Christ, John 5:17. But that three hours' work upon the cross, was more than all the other.
Eternity will not have more done in it, than virtually was done in those three hours; so as that small space of time was τὸ νῦν æternitatis. As they say of eternity, that it is all time contracted into an instant, so was all time, past, and to come, into those few hours, and the merit of them. For he then made work for the Spirit, and indeed for all the three persons, unto eternity. He then did that which the Spirit is writing out in grace and glory for ever, yea, and all that ever was or will be done towards the saints, was then perfected:
'He perfected for ever them that are sanctified, by that one offering:'
Heb. 10:12, 14, 'But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;' ver. 14, 'For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.'
CHAPTER VII
That Christ hath repaired the loss of honour which God sustained by sin.—Satisfaction in point of honour being to be measured by the
excellency, dignity, and reputation of the person satisfying.—Christ being God-man, in this respect makes the greatest which could be.
But the greatest evil of sin lies in the injury by it done unto the honour, and sovereign glory, and to the person of God himself, which is the thing that makes sin so heinous, that the difficulty of satisfying
God herein is insuperable by all the creatures (as hath been shewed), unto which, notwithstanding, we shall see Christ is as much enabled, as we have seen him to be unto the former, to make amends for the damage which God sustained.
Honour (as was said) being a personal thing, and a due resulting out of personal perfections, answerably therefore satisfaction therein is fundamentally to rise out of, and to be measured by, the personal worth, dignity, excellency, and reputation of the person who undertakes to satisfy. Wherefore, as the foundation of this great demonstration, let us consider briefly the personal worth of Christ our surety, as from whence all his satisfaction receives its force and value, and so we will go on to shew what his person hath done to make amends therein; and then by comparing (as we go along) both what he is, and what he hath done to satisfy, with what is in the dishonour done to God by sin (which is the thing to be satisfied for), you will see all the disproportions that have been mentioned and can be thought of, to make sin so above measure sinful, exceeded, and wholly overcome. Now as a ground-work to this, I will take but that one place;— Who, being in the form of God, thought it no robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.—PHIL. 2:6–8.
A place full and adequate to my scope, wherein (you see) the apostle argues the efficacy of Christ's merit, and the worth of it, from hence, that being equal with God, viz., in glory (as the opposite to he
humbled himself shews), he should be humbled; and that he should humble himself, and become obedient, &c., and all for the glory of God the Father. Every word is weighty, and speaks satisfaction; and that he, so great a person, for greatness of glory equal with God; for right to glory, one that thought it no robbery to challenge it; for the kind of glory which was his due, it was not accidental, but, substantial, 'being in the form of God;' that he should be emptied of all, and lay aside that honour, which was due unto him, yea, suffer all his glory to be debased, and his honour laid in the dust, and himself to be humbled to the greatest and basest of evils, death, and of all deaths the most shameful, 'the death of the cross,' and not humbled passively only, but that he should voluntarily 'humble himself, and become obedient,' and that the object of this subjection should be but actions only, not* himself, his person, so as all that he did or suffered reflected on himself, and his person was humbled in all; and all this, to recover God's honour lost, it was 'to the glory of God the Father'
(as the closure of all hath it); surely all this (as you will see) must needs make a full amends.
Now for the clearing of this point and demonstration, whence it is that this satisfaction ariseth, I will proceed by degrees, until a full satisfaction shall rise up to all your apprehensions, in a way of just reason, as there did unto God himself, by that one oblation of Christ himself for us.
And, first, let us consider the worth of the person, upon which the worth of the satisfaction doth depend. And to the manifesting of this, consider we first, that Christ had an essential glory, as he is God, which was the foundation and groundwork. This I need not insist upon, all knowing it, and taking it for granted, though divers interpreters judge it not to be that glory which the text doth directly and in the first place intend, yet to be ultimately supposed, as that which is the original ground of all that oriental transcendent glory, which as God-man he parted withal, for satisfaction to God. And though it be true that this glory of his, as he is merely God, cannot be debased or diminished, and so can never properly become the matter
of satisfaction for sin, but it is another glory, which I shall speak of presently, is the matter of it; yet this is it that was the cause and rise of that God-man's glory, and that doth give the original worth and value to all that Christ did or suffered. You shall still find that the Scripture puts the efficacy of his actions upon the worth of his person; for, indeed, it is the dignity of the person that dignifies the work. God had respect first to Abel, then to his sacrifice, for the sake of Abel. Therefore, in a proportion, the more worth and esteem the person is of with God, the more worth the actions are. And therefore, as the worth of Christ's person was infinite, so must the worth of his actions be. His person raiseth his actions in statum sibi similem, unto a state suitable to himself, as a king doth his children to a state answerable to his own. And as the human nature, being personally united to the Godhead, is raised unto a transcendent privilege by virtue of that union, which no other creature hath, so the actions thereof do, by virtue of the Godhead, come to have similem statum, they are raised to a proportionable state also. And as the human nature is sanctified through that union with the divine, with a sanctification beyond that of habitual graces (as the schoolmen have rightly observed and descried), so the actions thereof are deitate perfusæ, they have a divinity in them. As the human nature of Christ, by reason of its union with the Godhead, hath more worth and dignity communicated to it than is or could be in all creatures—'in all things he had the pre-eminence,' Col. 1:18—and therefore when he comes into the world, it was said, 'Let all the angels worship him,' which honour no creature must have; so his actions and graces are translated into as high a rank of dignity, above the graces and actions of creatures, and this by his person, even as his very human nature is exalted above the rank of all creatures. And this makes his blood to be precious blood indeed, in that it is the 'blood of God,' Acts 20:28.
The worth of this person being substantial, it doth se totum transfundere, it transfuseth, or rather casts its whole worth upon his actions, to the utmost of it. And as all the fulness of the Godhead is said to dwell in (Col. 2:9), and to be personally communicated to, the manhood, making it as glorious as a creature can possibly by God be made, so the whole person doth cast a glorious brightness or lustre,
and reflecteth upon the actions he doth in that nature all that personal worth that is communicable. And surely this will equal the proportion of evil that is in our sins; for as the offence was against an infinitely glorious God, so the works done to take away the offence were wrought by one as infinite. And as the chiefest accent* of the offence lies in this, that it was against an infinite majesty, so the greatness of the satisfaction made lies in this, that it was performed by the mighty God; which proportion could never have been filled up by any creature who was not God, satisfaction in point of honour depending upon the equal worth of the person honouring, and the person dishonoured. And though the human nature (which is in itself finite) be the principium quo, and the instrument by which and in which the second person doth all that he doth; and therefore answerably the physical being of those actions is but finite in genere entis, yet all those articles being attributed to the person who is principium quod, the principle which doth, and unto which all is to be ascribed (for actiones sunt suppositorum, actions are attributed to the persons, because that is said only to subsist), therefore the moral estimation of them is from the worth of the person that performs them. And thus though the immediate principle, the human nature, be finite, yet the radical principle, the person, is infinite. And both natures being one in person, what the one is said to do or suffer, the other is said to do and suffer; and therefore his blood is called 'the blood of God.' Yet this is not so to be understood (nor was it necessary unto satisfaction to God) as if the worth of the actions of this person should be as infinite as the person is, essentially and substantially; for Christ's merits could not be infinite, as God's attributes are; but it is enough to satisfaction, that they might be valued such in a moral estimation; for thereby it holds an answerable proportion unto the evil of sin. For as the evil of sin is said to be infinite morally only, and in repute, and objectivè, as it is against an infinite person, and not essentially infinite, as the object of it is; so answerably the satisfaction that it requires to be made for it, needs not to be essentially and physically infinite (for that were impossible), but it is enough if it be, as sin itself is, morally such, and in its value such, which then it will arise to be, when the person that
performs it is infinite; and so this will come to be subjectively infinite, as from an infinite person, as sin is objectively infinite, as against an infinite God. And such a person is the second person in the Trinity, and such therefore is his righteousness, it being the righteousness of him who is God.
But, secondly, although this essential glory of the Godhead gives the worth and value to all the actions that Christ did, yet in itself it was not capable of being debased, nor he of being emptied of it; nor could this therefore properly become the object matter which should be offered up to God for satisfaction. For as, in our sinning, God's essential glory is not nor cannot be injured by us, but it is wronged only in the shine and lustre of it, in the putting of itself forth before us creatures, or the manifestations of it (wherein though the essential glory of his Godhead is not obscured, but the manifestation of it only, yet the injury reflects upon that his essential glory, because that was it that was manifested), so in like manner is it in Christ's satisfaction. Christ's essential glory, as he is only God, could of itself alone never have satisfied for sin; for satisfaction in point of honour being to be effected by the lessening of glory in the satisfier, to give glory to him that is to have satisfaction, thence therefore the essential glory of the Godhead (which cannot be impaired of itself), if it remained unmanifested, it could never satisfy. But if this second person, putting himself forth to be manifested, will suffer himself to be obscured in that glory which is due to him when he comes to manifest himself, this indeed will come in to be fit matter for satisfaction.
For, thirdly, if the Godhead of Christ had gone about to manifest itself in works only, or such ways as are common to the other persons of the Trinity with himself, as by creating of worlds, making of laws,
&c., he had not by those ways satisfied neither; because the other persons had had as joint an interest in all such kind of manifestations as himself had, and the obscurement of him in such manifestations had reflected equally upon the other two persons as upon himself. Wherefore over and above that his essential glory, he
must have a manifestative glory, an outward, visible brightness of glory, and that also such as must become personal, and proper, and peculiar to him, so as to none of the other persons; that as it may be capable of being obscured, so also that obscurement of it may reflect upon his person, and upon it alone.
Therefore, fourthly, the Son of God, if he make satisfaction for sin, must necessarily be supposed first to take, or to have taken on him the nature of some reasonable creature, either of mankind or of the angels, into personal fellowship with himself; which would be both a peculiar way of manifesting himself and of his glory not common to the other two persons, and would also draw in all his personal excellencies into such an engagement, as that, both in the manifestation of himself in that nature assumed, his personal glory may be interested, and also, in the obscurement and clouding of himself in that manifestation, all these his excellencies may be said to be abased likewise, and so come to reflect upon the whole person himself, who is thus glorious, and upon all that is in him: and thus fitly come to make a full satisfaction.
Now, in the fifth place, let us consider what a manifestative glory is due to the Son of God, if he assume a creature into one person with himself. And herein consider we, that that nature or creature which he shall assume (be it man or angel) must by inheritance exist in the form of God, Phil. 2:6; which 'form of God' I here take not to be put for the essence of God, as neither is 'the form of a servant,' in the following sentence, taken for the nature of man simply considered, but for that debased appearance in which he in our nature came into the world, not as a Lord, glorious, but covered with infirmities; and this expression seems to be all one with that, Rom. 8:3, 'He came in the likeness of sinful flesh.' And so in like manner the 'form of God' here, is that God-like glory, and that manifestation of the Godhead, which was, and must needs be due to appear in the nature assumed; for form is put for an outward appearance and manifestation, in respect of which Christ, as God-man, is called 'the brightness of his
Father's glory,' Heb. 1:2. Brightness (you know) is not the substance
of light, but the appearance of it. And so also he is called 'the image of the invisible God,' Col. 1:15. The meaning of which is this, that whereas God's essential glory is invisible (for 'he dwells in light that no man can approach unto,' 1 Tim. 6:16). Christ assuming our human nature, becomes the image of it, and so makes it visible to us,
God having stamped all his glory upon his face, that we might see it in him: 2 Cor. 4:6, 'For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.' So that if the Son of God will assume our nature, then it will follow that unto that nature there is due a God-like glory, so much transcending all creatures, that all might plainly see and say, certainly that nature is united to God; surely that man must needs be God as well as man:
Hence, 1. He was to be endowed with privileges answerable to the dignity of the person assuming that nature; for if that nature becomes one in person with the Son of God, he becomes one in the privileges of the person also, and so that nature is to have a glory, 'as of the only begotten Son of God' (as the evangelist speaks, John 1:14), proper and peculiar to him. And so, besides that essential glory of his
Godhead, there will necessarily be due to that person, in that nature assumed, a more manifestative glory shining forth, than could have arisen to God any other way; for God manifested in the flesh personally, must needs have (as his due) more manifestative glory, and so manifest more of the essential glory of the Godhead, than God manifested in all his other works, be they never so transcendent: even as there is more honour due unto a king, if he in person shew himself, than if his arms only be set up, or proclamation be made in his name. And in this respect Christ God-man may be said in a safe sense to be 'equal with God,' as here in the text, not in essence, but in a communication of privileges: that as God hath life in himself alone, and it is a royalty incommunicable to any mere creature, so this Son of man, when once united thus unto the Godhead, is also said to 'have life in himself,' John 5:26, this equality, or ἰσότης, not being to be understood of equality in proportion, but of likeness, and is all
one with that which Zechariah speaks of his manhood, when he calls him 'the man God's fellow,' Zech. 13:7, one in joint commission with him. And thus Christ himself interprets it, John 5, when the Jews, looking at him as a mere man, had objected it unto him as blasphemy that 'he made himself equal with God;' ver. 18 (it is the same word that is here used in the text), Christ answered them, ver.
19. And you find that his answer runs upon this, that even as he was Son of man (which was it that made them to stumble so at his former words), his privileges were such by the union with the second person, that he had a true kind of partnership with God the Father in his privileges, and such as did arise to a likeness, though not to an essential equality: so ver. 19. It is true (says he), 'The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do; and yet whatever things he doth, these also doth the Son likewise.' And so, he goes on to shew, that he could do like things to his Father, and how he was to be honoured as his Father, ver. 23; and had life in himself, as his
Father had, ver. 26; and had all judgment committed to him, &c. And that he might be understood to speak this of himself as God-man, he expressly adds, 'Because he is the Son of man,' ver. 27.
2. And hence, secondly, unto the Son of God thus dwelling in a human nature (when it shall be first assumed), all this honour and glory is due: it is proper to him; and therefore it is here said in the text, 'he thought it no robbery' for him to challenge it. Yet of all things God is tender of his glory; 'I will not give my glory to another,'
Isa. 42:8. But Christ God-man dares challenge such a glory as we have been speaking of, as his due, and it is no robbery for him to do it, because it is his right. As, is worship to be performed unto God?
So it is to be given to Christ as dwelling in a human nature: Ps. 45:11, 'He is thy Lord, worship thou him.' Yea, 'let all the angels worship him,' when he comes into the world, and so as considered with his manhood, Heb. 1:6: and 'Worthy art thou' (say the saints and angels, and all creatures) 'to receive honour and glory;' and so 'they fall down before him,' Rev. 5:12. And therefore this high character of him is put in, 1 Cor. 2:8, that 'they crucified the Lord of glory.' He was
Lord, and possessor of all the glory that God hath, for as his Father