4. And this answers that expression which is so frequent in the Scripture, of God's sending his Son into the world, and that he came down from heaven, and came into the world. Gal. iv. 4, John iii. 13; all evincing his being the Son of God antecedently to that mission or sanctification whereby in the world he was declared so to be. Otherwise, the Son of God was not sent, but one to be his Son.
Acts xiii. 32, 33, is also insisted on: "We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again ; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee."
1. He that can see in this text a cause assigned of the filiation of
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Christ that should relate to the resurrection, I confess is sharper sighted than I. This I know, that if Christ were made the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead, he Avas not the Son of God Avho died, for that preceded this his making to be the Son of God. But that God gave his only-begotten Son to die, that he spared not his only Son, but gave him up to death, I think is clear in Scripture, if any thing be so.
2. Paul seems to interpret this place to me, when he informs us that "Christ was declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead," Rom. i. 4. Not that he was made so, but he was " declared" or made known to be so, when, being " cruci- fied through weakness, he lived by the power of God," 2 Cor, xiii. 4 ; which power also was his own, John x. 18.
According as was before intimated, Grotius interprets these words, " Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee," " I ,have made thee a king ; which," he says, " was fulfilled in that, when all power was given him in heaven and earth, Matt, xxviii. 18 ; as Justin in his colloquy with Trypho : ToVs yivsffiv avrou X'sycfjv ysviedai, s^oTOV 5? yvojeig ahro\J 'ifx^iWi ysvsff&at."^ (1.) But then he Avas the Son of God before his resurrection, for he was the Son of God by his being be- gotten of him : which as it is false, so contrary to his own gloss on Luke i. 35. (2.) Christ was a king before his resurrection, and owned himself so to be, as hath been showed. (3.) Justin's words are suited to our exposition of this place. He was said to be then begotten, because then he was made known to be so the Son of God. (4.) That these words are not applied to Christ, in their first sense, in respect of his resurrection, [is evident] from the pre-eminence assigned unto him above angels by virtue of this expression, Heb. i. 5, which he had before his death, chap. i. 6. Nor, (5.) Are the words here used to prove the resurrection, which is done in the verses following, out of Isaiah and another psalm, " And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead," etc., Acts xiii. 34, 35. But then, —
3. It is not an interpretation of the meaning of that passage in the psalm which Paul, Acts xiii., insists on, but the proving that Christ was the Son of God, as in that psalm he was called, by his resurrection from the dead ; Avhich was the great manifesting cause of his deity in the world.
What Mr B. intends by the next place mentioned by him I know not. It is Bev. i. 5, " And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead." That Christ was the first who was raised from the dead to a blessed and glorious immor- tality, and is thence called the first-begotten of them, or from the dead, and that all that rise to such an immortality rise after him,
' " 0 fill mi, hodie te genui, id est, Begem te feci. Hoc in Christo impletum, cum ei data omnis potestas in coelo ct in terra, Matt, xxviii. 18," etc. — Grot, in loc.
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and by virtue of his resurrection, is most certain and granted ; but that from thence he is that only-begotten Son of God, though thereby he was only " declared" so to be, there is not the least tittle in the text giving occasion to .such an apprehension.
And the same also is affirmed of the following place of Col. i. 18, where the same words are used again: "He is the head of the church, who is the beginning, irpurdroTiog i% ruv vsKpSJv, — the first-born of the dead." Only I shall desire our catechist to look at his leisure a little higher into the chapter, where he will find him called also -TrpojTOToxo; 'Trdarji xrisioic^ " the first-born of all the creation;" so that he must surely be ':Tpo}Tciro-/.og before his resurrection. Nay, he is so the first- born of every creature as to be none of them;^ for by him they were all created, verse 16. He who is so before all creatures as to be none of them, but that they are all created by him, is " God blessed for ever : " which when our catechist disproves, he shall have me for one of his disciples.