ae
VER. 8, 9 ] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 185
more frequent in it than to denote that which is present and abiding by the preterperfect tense, as it doth in this place.
6. The consequence of this righteous rule in Christ is his “ anoint- ing with the oil of gladness;” wherein we may consider,—(1.) The author of the privilege conferred on him,—that is, God, his God. (2.) The privilege ttself,—unction with the oil of gladness, (3.) The connection of the collation of this privilege with what went before, —“ wherefore,” or “for which cause.”
(1.) For the author of it, it is said to be God: 6 @si¢, 6 @zbs oov,— “God, thy God.” Many, both ancient and modern expositors, do suppose that 6 @eé¢ in the first place, or “God,” is used in the same sense as 6 @sé¢ in the verse foregoing, and that it ought to be ren- dered “O God,” and the words to be read, “ Therefore, O God, thy God hath anointed thee;” but as no old translation gives countenance to this conception, so that reduplication of the name of God, by an application of it in the second place, as “ God, my God,” “ God, thy God,” “God, the God of Israel,” being frequent in the Scripture, there is no cogent reason why we should depart in this place from that sense of the expression. The name God in the first place denotes him absolutely who conferred this privilege on the Lord Christ, that is God; and in the second place a reason is intimated of the colla- tion itself, by an appropriation of God to be his God in a peculiar manner.
God is said to be the God of the Son upon a threefold account:
_[1.] In respect of his divine nature. As he is his Father, so his God; whence he is said to be “ God of God,” as having his nature com- municated unto him by virtue of his eternal generation, John i. 14. [2.] In respect of his human nature, as he was “made of a woman, made under the law.” So God also was his God, as he is the God of all ereatures, Ps. xvi. 2, xxii. 1. [3.] In respect of his whole person, God and man, as he was designed by his Father to the work of me- diation; in which sense he calls him his God and his Father, John xx. 17. And in this last sense is it that God is here said to be his God, that is his God in especial covenant, as he was designed and appointed to be the head and king of his church; for therein did God the Father undertake to be with him, to stand by him, to carry him through with his work, and in the end to crown him with glory, See Isa. xlix. 1-12, 1. 4-9.
(2.) For the privilege itself, it is “unction with the oil of gladness.” There may be a double allusion in these words:—[1.] To the com- mon use of oil and anointing, which was to exhilarate and make the countenance appear cheerful at feasts and public solemnities, Ps. civ, 15; Luke vii. 37. [2.] To the especial use of it in the unction of kings, priests, and prophets, Exod. xxx. That the ceremony was typical is evident from Isa, lxi. 1-3; and it denoted the collation of the
186 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. I.
gift of the Holy Ghost, whereby the person anointed was enabled for the discharge of the office he was called unto. And in this sense there is commonly assigned a threefold unction of Christ:—Ist, At his conception, when his human nature was sanctified by the Holy Spirit, Luke i. 35, and radically endowed with wisdom and grace, which he grew up in, Luke ii. 40, 52. 2dly. At his baptism and en- trance into his public ministry, when he was in an especial manner furnished with those gifts of the Spirit which were needful for the discharge of his prophetical office, Matt. iii. 16; John 1.32. 3dly. At his ascension, when he received of the Father the promise of the Spirit, to pour him forth upon his disciples, Acts ii, 33. Now, though I acknowledge the Lord Christ to have been thus anointed, © and that the communication of the gifts and graces of the Spirit unto him in fulness is called his unction, yet I cannot grant that any of them are here directly intended. But that which the apostle seems here to express with the psalmist is the glorious exaltation of Jesus Christ, when he was solemnly instated in his kingdom. This is that which is called the making of him “both Lord and Christ,” Acts ii. 836; when “God raised him from the dead, and gave him glory,’ 1 Pet.i 21. He is called Christ from the unction of the Spirit; and yet here, in his exaltation, he is said in an especial man- ner to be made Christ,—that is, taken gloriously into the possession of all the offices, and their full administration, whereunto he was anointed and fitted by the communication of the gifts and graces of the Spirit unto him. It is, I say, the joyful, glorious unction of his exaltation, when he was signally made Lord and Christ, and declared to be the anointed one of God, that is here intended. See Phil. ii. 9-11. Which also appears,—