' The Son of man shall give it you.' You need not fear it, God is become man on purpose to give it you. We may now boldly go to a mediator which is made bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. We should have feared and trembled if he had only been God, but now all grace and comfort is hid in this nature of ours in Christ. If Christ had not took this poor, wretched nature of ours upon him, it had been a hate- ful nature to God. God hated the nature of man ; but now, because the Son of God is become the Son of man, our nature is become lovely in the eyes of God ; and not only lovely, but it is filled in him with all grace, and of his ' fulness we receive grace for grace,' John i. IG. He will give it therefore, because he is ' the Son of man.'
874 THE FRUITFUL LABOUR
Hero is will ; ay, but what power and strength hath ho to givo it ?
He is so the Son of man as that he is also the Bon of God. Therefore we are said, Acts xx. 28, ' to bo redeemed with the blood of God.' Christ by his eternal Spirit, by his Godhead, oflbred himself a sacrifice for sin. So that ho can give it because he is God.
But what authority hath he ?
He is 'scaled' to do it. That is the third; that is, he hath authority, for authority is here expressed by ' sealing.' Now, Christ is said to be
* sealed,' first, because there is the impression of God iipon him. Even as the seal imprints in the wax the likeness of that which is in it, so God hath imprinted in Christ his own likeness. He is the image of God, for Christ as he is God is the character* of his Father ; and his human nature is likewise as like God as nature can express. ' We saw,' saith the apostle, ' his glory, the glory as of the only begotten'Son of God,' John i. 14. We saw a kind of divinity in him, as much as human nature could receive ; the likeness of God sparkled in him ; therefore he is said to be ' sealed.' But that is not all, nor the principal here meant.
Again, secondly, The use of a seal is to appropriate and distinrfiiish from other things; so Christ is sealed, that is, God hath appropriated him to bo his own Sou, and to be a mediator of his own appointing, and hath distin- guished him from all others by a blessed anointing and qualification of him above all. He is as Saul among the rest, higher than all ; he is as Aaron, anointed with the oil of gladness, but above his fellows, and yet for his fellows. From him distils the blessed ointment of grace. It is poured on his head first, and descends from him down to all the skirts of his garment, to all his members. So here is in this sealing likeness, distinction, and appropriation.
But especially by sealing here is meant authority : for a thing sealed is not only to distinguish and appropriate to a man's use, but to authorise also. As a magistrate that hath the king's broad seal, he is authorised ; so Christ he hath God's seal, God hath authorised him to be a mediator ; and as he was foreordained before all worlds, as the apostle Peter saith, ' to be the head of them that should be saved, and to be their mediator,' 1 Pet. i. 9, seq., so when the fulness of time was come, when he came in the ficsh, he was authorised by the greatest testimony that ever was, by the blessed Trinity, God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, at his bap- tism. ' This is my beloved Son, hear him,' saith a voice from heaven. Mat. iii. 17. There was the Father, the Son in the voice, the Holy Ghost in the dove. There was the whole Trinity. So he was authorised from heaven.
And then he was authorised by his miracles. God gave him power to work those works which none could do but a Mediator. Therefore he saith,
* If you believe not mo, yet believe me for my works' sake,' John x. 38.
He was authorised also by his resurrection, as the apostle saith, in Rom. i. 4 : * He mightily declared himself to be the Son of God by the resurrec- tion from the dead.' The angels from heaven brought witness of him. He was witnessed by all kind of persons on earth, yea, by the devils them- selves. So he is ' sealed ' and authorised every way, by all kind of wit- nesses, to be a mediator.
This is set out in other phrases in the Scripture. In Ps. ii. 7, ' This my Son have I set upon my holy hill of Sion ;' and Piom. iii., toward the latter end, ver. 25 : ' Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation.' God * That is, ""/aiaz-rio, the ' express image.' — Ed.
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hath set him forth as the shewbrcad was set out under the law. And then again in another place, ' Whom he hath sent,' 1 John iv. 9, 10 ; and in 1 Cor. i. 30, ' He is made of God unto us wisdom,' &c. * He is made of God;' that is, he is ' sealed,' appointed, authorised by God for that purpose.