Note this by the way : Christ's priestly office, his sacrificing himself for us, includes two branches. A priest was to ofier sacrifice and to pray for the people. Our Saviour Christ did both in the days of his humiliation, in his prayer in John xvii. There, as a priest, he commends his sacrifice to God before he died ; and now he is in heaven making intercession for us, to the end of the world. He appears for us there. We see, then, to what purpose God put the Spirit upon Christ, to enable him to be a prophet, a priest, and a king, and thereupon to take away those mischiefs and evils that we were subject and enthralled to ; so that we have a supply for aU that may any way abase us and cast us down, in the all-sufficiency that is in Christ Jesus, who was anointed with the Spirit for this end.
It may be objected, Christ was God himself ; he had the Spirit, and gives the Spuit ; therefore, how could the Spirit be put upon him ?
I answer, Christ is both God and man. Christ, as God, gives the Spirit to his human nature ; so he communicates his Spirit. The Spirit is his Spirit as well as the Father's. The Spirit proceeds from them both. Christ, as man, receives the Spirit. God the Father and the Son put the Spirit upon the manhood of Christ ; so Christ both gives and receives the Spirit in diverse respects. As God, he gives and sends the Spirit. The spiration and breathing of the Spirit is from him as well as from the Father, but as man he received the Spirit.
And this is the reason of it : next under the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Christ the Mediator, was to be the spring and original of all comfort and good. Therefore, Christ's nature must not only be sanctified and ordained by the Spirit ; but he must receive the Spirit to enrich it, for whatsoever is wrought in the creature is by the Spirit. Whatsoever Christ did as man, he did by the Spirit. Christ's human nature, therefore, must be sanctified, and have the Spirit put upon it. God the Father, the first person in Trinity, and God the Son, the second, they work not immediately, but by the Holy Ghost, the third person. Therefore, whatsoever is wrought upon the creature, it comes from the Holy Ghost immediately. So Christ received the Holy Ghost as sent from the Father and the Son. Now as the Holy Sphit is from the Father and the Son, so he works from the Father and the Son. He sanctifieth and purifieth, and doth all from the Father and the Son, and knits us to the Father and the Son ; to the Son first, and then to the Father. Therefore it is said, ' The gi-ace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Ghost,' 2 Cor. xiii. 14 ; because all the communion we have with God is by the Holy Ghost. All the communion that Christ as man had with God was by the Holy Ghost ; and all the communion that God hath with us, and we with God, is by the Holy Ghost : for the Spirit is the bond of union between Christ and us, and between God and us. God communicates himself to us by his Spirit, and we communicate with God
VOL. I. B
18 A DESCEIPTION OF CHRIST.
by his Spirit. God doth all in us by his Spirit, and we do all back again to God by the Spirit. Because Christ, as a head, as the second Adam, was to be the root of all that are saved, as the first Adam was the root of all that are damned, he was therefore to receive the Spirit, and to have it put upon him in a more excellent and rich manner : for we must know that all things are first in Christ, and then in us.
God chose him first, and then he chose us. God singled him out to be the Saviom", the second Adam, and he calls us in Christ.
God justified Christ from our sins, being our surety, taking our sing upon him. We are justified, because he by his resun'ection quit himself from the guilt of our sins, as having paid the debt.
Christ is the first fruits of them that rise again, 1 Cor. xv. 20. We rise again because he is risen. Christ first ascended ; we ascend in Christ. Chi'ist is first loved ; we are loved in the Beloved. Christ is first blessed ; we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in Jesus Christ, Eph. i. 8. So, whatsoever is in us, we have it at the second hand. We have the Spirit in us, but he is first in Christ ; God hath put the Spirit in Christ, as the spring, as the second Adam, as a public person, that should receive the Spirit for us all. He is fu'st in all things ; Christ must have the pre- eminence. He hath the pre-eminence m all, both before time, in time, and after time, in election, in whatsoever is done here in this world, and in glorification. All is first in Christ, and then in us. He is the elder brother.