agree with Bernard's devout remark about the subject, "It is rashness to search too far into it. It is piety tobeheve it. It is life eternal to know it. And we can never have a full ccmpre- hcfi.sion of it, till we come to enjoy it,"
2. — [I'Ae same was in the heginniyig, &c.'\ This verse contains an emphatic repetition of the second clause of the preceding verse. St. John anticipates the possible objection of some perverse mind, that perhaps there was a time when Christ, the Word, was not a distinct Person in the Trinity. In reply to this objec- tion, he declares that the same Word who was eternal, and was God, was also from all eternity a Person in the Godhead distinct from God the Father, and yet with Him by a most intimate and ineffable union. In short, there never was a time when Christ was not " with God."
There are two passages in the Old Testament which throw strong light on the doctrine of this verse. The one is in the Book of Proverbs viii. 22 — 31. The other is in Zechariah xiii. 7. The passage in Proverbs seems intended to explain the verse before us. The passage in Zechariah contains an expres- sion which is almost a parallel to the expression " with God." " Awake, 0 sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord." "The man that is my fellow," according to the best commentators, means the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and a reference to Poole's Synopsis will show that the words signify " the man that is near me, or joined to me."
Arrowsmith says, " Ask the sun, if ever it were without its beams. Ask the fountain, if ever it were without its streams. So God was never without His Son."
We must not suppose that the repetition of this second verse is useless or unmeaning. Arrowsmith remarks that"Eepeti- tions have divers uses in Scripture. In prayer they argue affec- tion. In prophecy they note celerity and certainty. In threat- enings they note unavoidableness and suddenness. In precepts they note a necessity of performing them. In truths^ like that before us, they serve to show the necessity of believing and knowing them." 3.— [AZZ things.. .made hy Am.] This sentence means that creation was the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, no less than of God the Father. "By him were all things created." (Coloss. i. 16.) " Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth." (Heb. i. 10.) Now He that made all things must needs be God.
The expression, we must carefully remember, does not imply any inferiority of God the Son to God the Father, as if God the Son was only the agent and workman under another. Nor yet does it imply that creation was in no sense the work of God