CHAPTER 19
THE PROOF OF THE GOSPEL
Bk. V.
For which Aquila substitutes :
" Since thou art the Lord in the hearts of this people, which sees thee, O Lord, face Exod. to face."
And Symmachus :
" Since thou art, O Lord."
XXIV • • And It IS said in Exodus :
" And Moses, and Aaron, and Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and saw the place where the God of Israel stood."
Instead of which Aquila says : "And they saw the God of Israel."
(245) And Symmachus: "And they saw in a vision the God of Israel."
John i. iS.
From the text:
" No man has seen God at any time," perhaps it might be thought that the above quotation contradicts the Saviour's words, as implying that the invisible is visible.
But if they be understood, like our former cjuotations, of the Word of God, ^^'ho was seen Ilcb. i.
I. by the fathers "in many ways and in sundry manners," no contradiction is involved.
(b) The God of Israel here seen is shewn to be the same Being ^^'ho was seen by Israel, when a man wrestled with Him, Who first changed his name from Jacob to Israel, saying:
"Thou hast power with God," and when, also, Jacob appreciating His divine power called the place of (c) the struggle the Sight of God, saying :
" I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."
I showed in the proper place that this was no other than the Word of God.
CHAPTER
(246) From Joshua, the son of Nave.
Tlial God the Word, Who ans7vcrcih Moses. ap(>eared also to the Forefathers of Old Time, and to Joshua, Moses'
Successor, in Human Form.
[Passage quoted, Josh. v.
13-15-] Thk same words, you will remember, were said by the same Lord to Moses at the beginning of the vision of the Bush, for Scripture says :
Ch.
19.
VISION OF JOSHUA
"^. And when the Lord saw that he drew nigh to sec, He called him from the midst of the Bush, saying, Moses, Moses, come not near here ; ^ loose thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest (1>) is holy ground."
Exuil.iii.4.
So, then, the command that was given shews that the God Who answered on both occasions was one and the same.
Though here He prophesies through the Chief and Captain of His power, and to Moses by the vision of the angel.
And of the heavenly armies, celestial powers and invisible spirits, holy angels and archangels ministering to God the King of kings and the Lord of lords (as Daniel says "Thousand thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand (c) times ten thousand stood before him '), what other could Dan. vii. be highest of all but the Word of God, His Firstborn 'oWisdom, His Divine Offspring?
Rightly, then. He is here called Chief Captain of the Power of the Lord, as also elsewhere "Angel of Great Counsel," "Throned with the Father,"
" Eternal and Great High Priest."
And it has been proved that the same Being is both Lord and God, and Christ anointed by the Father with the oil of gladness.
Thus, appearing to Abraham by the oak in human form, (d) He reveals Himself in a calm and peaceful guise, foreshowing by it His future Coming to save mankind
; He appeared to Jacob, as to an athlete and a champion destined to wrestle with enemies, in the form of a man, and to Moses and the people in the form of cloud and fire, and led them, shewing Himself terrible and shadowy.
And as Joshua, the successor of Moses, was about to fight against the former possessors of Palestine his enemies, foreign and most ungodly races. He rightly appears to him with a sword drawn and pointed against the enemy, shewing by the vision that He Himself is about to attack the ungodly with an unseen sword and with divine power, the fellow-soldier and the fellow-combatant of His people.
Wherefore He gives Himself the name of Chief and (247) Captain of the Lord to suit the occasion.
S. adds '5 5e (iir^v, T» eVriv ;
THE PROOF OF THE GOSPEL
Bk. V.
CHAPTER
How the Creator of the Universe, the Word of God, answered Job, and is said to have appeared to Him, just as He (b) did to the Fathers.
[Passages quoted, Job xxxviii. i, 4, 7, 8, 14-17 ; xlii. 4-6.] It is easy to distinguish that the words before us are the Words of the Lord the Creator, not only from what has previously been considered but from the impression they make on you.
And, moreover, that the passages :
" Hast thou gone to the source of the sea, and trodden in the footprints of the deep?" and:
"Do the gates of death open to thee for fear, and did the fortress of hell quake when they saw thee ? " prophesy our Saviour's descent into Hades I will prove in the proper place, only now remarking that it is more reasonable to refer this passage to God the Word than to the God of the Universe.
(248) Job certainly afterwards bears witness that he has seen with his own eyes, as the fathers did the Lord Who spoke to him through the whirlwind and the' clouds, saying
"Hear me. Lord, that I also may speak: and I will ask thee, and teach thou me.
I have heard of thee by the report of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee ; wherefore I have humiliated myself and have melted, and I reckon myself dust and ashes."
But how could a soul clothed in flesh and mortal eyes (1)) behold the Most High God, the Being beyond the Universe, the Unchangeable and Unbegottcn Essence, unless we could say that here also God the AN'ord proved to be Lord in varying instances shews Himself as passing from His own proper majesty ?
This we may learn to be so from the oracles themselves, in which the Lord again narrating the story of the devil, under the name of the Dragon, to Job, insisted. Do not you fear because he is prepared for me?
For what Lord ought we to think that the Dragon (c) was prepared, but our .Saviour the Divine \\'ord ?
He it was that destroyed the Prince of tliis world, who of old besieged the human race, loosing tiic pains of death, as
Hi. 21.
THE TWO LORDS
He Himself also shews, saying: "Didst ihou come to the spring of the sea, and troddest thou the traces of the depth ?
Did the doors of death open to thee in fear, and the warders of hell seeing thee tremble ? " and He naturally gave this answer to Job after the great trial and contest through which He had gone, teaching him that though he has struggled more than his share, a greater and sterner (d) battle and contest is reserved for the Lord Himself against the time of His Coming to earth to die.
CHAPTER
From Psalm xc.
Thai this Psalm knows Two Lords.
[Passage quoted, Ps. xc. 9-13-] These are the words that the devil uses in the Temptation (249) of our Saviour.
Notice, then, how the Psalm says to the Lord Himself:
"For thou, O Lord my hope, hast made the Most High thy refuge."
For Thou Thyself, he says, my hope, O Lord, hast made thy refuge One greater than Thyself, God Himself the Most Highest over all and Thine own Father ; wherefore evils shall not come upon Thee, ('>) and no scourge shall come nigh Thy dwelling.
And although wicked men attempt to scourge Thee, when Thou shalt become man, and to put Thee to death, yet for all that the scourge of God shall not come nigh Thy dwelling, that is Thy body, which Thou shalt wear for our sakes having become man.
In the same way you will refer to Him all the remainder of the Psalm, which I will consider also in its fit place.
VOL I.
THE PROOF OF THE GOSPEL
Bk. V.
CHAPTER
(c) From Hosea.
About the Word of God and about the Father, as about a Lord.
[Passage ciuoted, Hos. xi.
9.] (fl) In these words God the Word says when He has become man to those who confess Him to be a holy man, but not God :
" I am God and not a holy man among you."
And, then, having called Himself God, He shews the Almighty Lord and Ciod, His Father, adding :
" 1 will go behind the Lord."
And the words :
" I will not enter into the city," are of one who refuses to take part in the common and vulgar life of men, from which also He dissuades his own disciples : "Go not on a road of the Gentiles, and enter not Matt.
5. into a city of the Samaritans."
CHAPTER
(250) From Amos.
(1)) 0/ Our Saviour as of a Lord, and of His Father as of God, and of the Destruction of the Jnrish People.
[Passage quoted, Amos iv.
1 1.] And here the Lord Himself says that some God has caused the destruction of Sodom, since He Himself must plainly be a different Being from the One of \\hom He speaks.
Therefore two Lords stands out in the destruction (c) of Sodom and Gomorrah, when the Lord rained the fire of the Lord on them.
You also, he says, will suffer u destruction such as Sodom underwent for its unnatural wickedness, and even so did not turn to Me.
Scripture generally regards the future as past, so that we must understand the past to be meant in spite of the tense.
The future "I will overthrow" must be understood for the past "I overthrew,"" and "ye will not turn," for "ye did turn."