312 THE APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION
man who had actually lived on earth, a son of Adam, a member of that Jewish race which had always emphasized the immeasur- able nature of the distance which separates the creature from the Creator. Beside the great Jehovah whom Judaism had feared to name, and beside that Divine Spirit whose workings had been mysterious even to the prophets whom it inspired, St. Paul is not afraid to place the name of the historical Jesus ; he is not even afraid to mention His name first of the three. We have grown so familiar with the rhythm of the formula that we are apt to forget the paradox it must have involved to every Jewish mind. Before the burning blaze of the Divine purity even the Lawgiver had been commanded to put the shoes from off his feet, and remember his unworthiness to stand on holy ground. Here is a man who five-and-twenty years before had been seen going in and out amongst his fellow-beings, sharing in their common toil, wearing their human frailty, walking their daily course of suffering and duty ; yet this man, at the close of these five-and-twenty years, is spoken of by one of the leading Apostles of the primitive Church in the same breath with the eternal Jehovah and the life of the Divine Spirit ; and spoken of in a way which shows the belief of that Apostle to have been an article of faith in the community amongst whom he laboured. The paradox is only another proof how boundless must have been the impression produced by the life of the Christian Founder, and how impossible it is to account for the construction of that life on any mythical principle of New Testament interpretation.^
4. In this threefold benediction the Apostle places the grace of Christ before the love of God. Why does he do this ? The explanation is found in the fact that this is not a doxology, not primarily a confession of faith, but a benediction. A doxology is an ascription of praise ; a benediction is a word of blessing. One ascends from the heart of man to God, the other descends from God to man. Consequently the benediction approaches the subject not from the standpoint of theology, but from that of experience. It is not concerned with definition, nor does it contemplate the glory of God in the absoluteness of His Deity, but it sets Him forth as He is realized in the soul. The process is in this order. We come to the knowledge of God through Jesus Christ, and the Spirit is the gift of both the Father and the Son. It is through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that we
' Q, Mathesou,
2 COR. XIII. 14 313
come to the knowledge of the love of God, and it is by grace and love that we enter into the life of communion with the Holy Ghost. No other order is possible. To sinful men there can be no love apart from grace, and fellowship is impossible without love. God is always revealed as He is involved in His relation to the world and the human race, and here He is revealed as He becomes known to the soul in the process of salvation through faith in His name.
•[I Which is first, the door or the house — first, that is, when we enter into the house ? If God has a great mansion of love, He must provide a door to it, or we shall never get in. Now grace is the door into love. If God has a heart of love in the midst of all His immense activity, He must show it to our hearts, or else we should never be able to trust Him in the view of all His actions ; and therefore though a " natural " man, which commonly means a rough, unthinking fellow, may have come without sense of his sins and wants, to talk a little of the love of God, in a poor way it is true, and might wish the love of God to be placed first; the spiritual man, as a thoughtful man, can see that grace must be placed first, because a special favour is in its effect upon our character like a door which admits us into the great common, permanent, public favour of God; he will see that, unless God reveal to us His heart in His intimate kindness to our own, we shall never be able to feel quiet confidence when we look forth into the immensity of His universe.^
5. The first Christians had a threefold experience of God, and they needed three Names to give it adequate expression. They knew that God had come to them in the perfect life of their Master ; that Jesus Christ had lifted them up into a measure of the same consciousness of God as Father in which He Himself had always lived ; and that God was reproducing His own life in their regenerate hearts. So they spoke of God as Son and Father and Holy Spirit. Nothing less would fully express what He had become to them.
What they used was the language of religion, and not the language of metaphysical speculation about the mystery of the Divine nature. They never attempted to define in accurate and systematic terms things that have abounding reality for the loving heart, the surrendered will, and the illumined eye, but which cannot be adequately presented to the logical intellect. » T. T. Lynch, TAree Months' Ministry, 319.