CHAPTER I: Two things to be considered in the obedience which Christ performed, the will and th
CHAPTER I
That there are two things to be considered in the obedience which Christ performed, the will and the deed.—That from all eternity he expressed his willingness, in his consent to undertake the work.
As in all our obedience there are two principal ingredients to the true and right constitution of it, the matter of the obedience itself, and the principle and fountain of it in us: whereof the one, the apostle calls the deed, the other, the will—which latter God accepts in us, oftentimes without, always more than, the deed or matter of obedience itself—even so in Christ's obedience, which is the pattern and measure of ours, there are these two eminent parts which complete it.
I. The obedience itself, and the worth and value of it, in that it is his, so great a person's.
II. The willingness, the readiness to undertake, and the heartiness to perform it. The dignity of the person gave the value, the merit to the obedience performed by him. But the will, the zeal in his performance, gains the acceptance, and hath besides a necessary influence into the worth of it, and the virtue and efficacy of it to sanctify us. All which you have in the text. The 'offering up the body of Jesus:' there is the matter. The 'obedience of him to death:' there is the will by which he offered it up: 'by which will.' As calling not only for a distinct, but a more eminent consideration, and both necessarily concurring to our sanctification and salvation; 'By which will we are sanctified.' Now the story of his willingness to redeem and save, or the will by which we are sanctified, is a story of four parts.
1. Of his actual consent and undertaking the work, made and given to his Father from everlasting.
2. The continuance of that his will to stand to it from everlasting, unto the time of his incarnation and conception.
3. The renewal of this consent when he came into the world.
4. The stedfast continuance of that will all along in the performance, from the cradle to the cross.
And 1. As to his voluntary undertaking it 'afore the world was.' In the handling and discovery of those transactions of God the Father with him about the work of redemption, I have spoken something of Christ's willingness and consent, as it was there necessary; for else I could not have set forth the issue and conclusion of that treaty made by the persons shewing themselves; yet so as I reserved enough to make it a distinct head, when I should come to Christ's part. And so I here begin with it; for it was then, as was said, left by God the Father with him, and did wholly lie upon him.
It was necessary that Christ's consent should be then given, even from everlasting, and that as God made a promise to him for us, so that he should give consent again unto God. Yea; and indeed it was one reason why it was necessary he that was our mediator should be
God, and existent from eternity, not only to the end he might be privy to the first design and contrivement of our salvation, and know the bottom and the first of God's mind and heart in it, and receive all the promises of God from God for us, but also in this respect, that his very consent should go to it from the first, even as soon as his Father should design it. And it was right meet it should be so; for the performance and all the working, operating part was to be his, and to lay* all upon his shoulders to execute, and it was a hard task, and therefore reason he should both know it with the first, seeing he was extant together with his Father, and should also from the first contrivement by his Father give his consent to it. It was fit that both his heart and head should be in with the first. And you have all in one
Scripture, Isa. 9:6, where, when Christ is promised, 'Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,' observe under what titles he is set
forth unto us: 'Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father.'
Where everlastingness, which is affixed to one, is yet common to those other two. The 'everlasting Counsellor,' as well as 'everlasting
Father;' for he was both Counsellor and Father, in that he was the mighty God, and all alike from everlasting. For, being God, and with his Father as a Son from everlasting, he must needs be a Counsellor with him, and so privy unto all God meant to do, especially in that very business, for the performance of which he is there said to be given as a son, and born as a child, and the effecting of which is also said to be laid wholly on his shoulders. Certainly in this case, if God could hide nothing from Abraham he was to do, much less God from Christ, who was God with him from everlasting. And as he was for this cause to be privy to it for the cognisance of the matter, so to have given his actual consent likewise thereunto: for he was to be the father and founder of all that was to be done in it. And in that very respect, and in relation to that act of will then passed, whereby he became a father of that business for us, it is he is styled the 'everlasting Father,' and that from everlasting à parte post. For it is in respect of that everlastingness he is God, and so father from everlasting, as well as God from everlasting; a counsellor for us with God, a father of us, and our salvation. God's counsellor, because his wisdom was jointly in that plot and the contrivement of it: and father both of us and this design, because of his will in it, and undertaking to effect it. In that his heart and will were in it as well as the Father's, he was therefore the father of it as well as God, and brought it to perfection.
I acknowledge the Scripture is more sparing in recording that hand and will that the Son of God had in it as from everlasting. And I have long apprehended this to be the reason of it; because his will is so necessarily and naturally resolved into his Father's will, they having but one will between them (as I have elsewhere alleged it upon this very argument), but chiefly because what was done as in the point of our salvation from everlasting, it is and was the proper honour of God the Father; and so the concurrence of the Son is swallowed up in the Father's contrivements about it; and the rather also, because the
Son hath manifested his willingness so abundantly in the very performing it, which necessarily imported and required this everlasting consent of his, and argues it. Hence so little is explicitly said of it. But as the work of redemption performed in time is attributed to the Son, so these works from everlasting to the Father.
And therefore all the speech is of what he then did; how he made promise to Christ, and blessed us in him with all spiritual blessings, and sware he should be priest upon the very day he begat him, in Heb. 5, which refers both to his eternal generation and call to the office of priesthood, from the same everlasting, as well as to that in time.
Yet there are two things said elsewhere, that imply Christ's full consent given from everlasting, in answer unto that oath of God. For it is not barely said, as in that place, that he was 'made a priest' passively, as dedicated only by his Father to the priesthood, that might have been supposed to have been without his own actual consent given; like as parents, from the births of their children, have dedicated them to the ministry, or the like calling, as Hannah did
Samuel without his knowledge; and thus also Sampson was a Nazarite. But it was not so here, that his being made a priest then by his Father, is elsewhere interpreted by his being made a 'surety of a covenant.' So Heb. 7, by comparing the 21st and 22d verses together.
In the 21st verse that oath is mentioned, 'The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest.' And this is interpreted by an inference from it, ver. 22, 'By so much was Jesus made surety of a better testament.' Now, this oath, though it was recorded and uttered by David, Ps. 110, after Moses' law supposed given, as the last verse of that chapter insinuates, yet we elsewhere find this covenant to be called an everlasting covenant, and the everlasting gospel, as Rev. 15, as that which had been made and lain hid in God from everlasting, à parte post, as the apostle, speaking of the gospel, plainly insinuates,
Rom. 16:25, 26, 'The mystery kept secret since the world began; but now is made manifest, according to the commandment of the everlasting God,' which special attribute of eternity is there given
God, to signify that though he had 'kept it secret since the world
began,' and but now revealed it, yet he had framed and contrived it from everlasting and afore the world. And it is certain, that as all promises in the word are but the copies of God's promises made to Christ for us from everlasting, so these oaths and covenants recorded in the word are but the copy of that oath and covenant struck betwixt
God and Christ from everlasting. These the extracts, those the original.
Now, then, if the intent of God's oath was to make a covenant of it, and not only a promise but a covenant, then Christ's consent is manifestly imported. If it had only been called a promise from God, that would not necessarily have implied Christ's consent, though it would have implied his existence or being then, as I have used to argue from that place, Titus 1:2, 'In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began.' But it being called further a covenant, it doth import two; for as a mediator is not of one but two, so a covenant is always the consent of two, and not of one only; it cannot be a covenant else. You use to say, to every bargain two words must go; the meaning is, the consent of two parties. So to every covenant; it had not been a complete covenant else. If God had sworn to it; yea, if Christ himself had been secretly willing, yet if by his consent expressed it had not been struck up, it had not been a covenant. A purpose also it might have been called, but not a covenant.
Yea, and let me further improve it. If Christ had not fully and perfectly consented, it had not been a perfect covenant. Yea, and if he had not at first propounding of it (which was from everlasting) come off to it, without taking any time to deliberate, it had not been an everlasting covenant; that is, from everlasting.
But (which is more) the second person did so fully engage himself, that God calls him not only his covenanter, but his covenant. It is in that place, Isa. 49:8, out of which I have elsewhere shewed how the covenant was struck dialogue-wise. You may see there how it was