TRANSLATIONS.—Aizyu. Thou shalt remain.—Boothroyd, Stuart, Ebrard. Tu permanebis,— Vulgate. Du bestehest.—De Wette.—Ep.
198 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. 1.
Jews to respect the time of the Messiah; it being he who was to be a light unto the Gentiles, and the salvation of God unto the ends of the earth.
[3.] Also, “the generation to come,” and “ people to be created,” the Jews themselves interpret of the s3n nbiy, “world to come,” or the new state of the church under the Messiah. These two last put together, the gathering of the people, and the world to come, created for the praise of God, make it evident that it is the Son whom the psalmist hath respect unto.
Grotius in this place affirms that the apostle accommodates unto the Messiah what was spoken of God. And he thinks it a sufficient argument to prove the words were not spoken of the Messiah, be- cause they were spoken of God; whereas they are produced by the apostle to prove his excellency from the properties and works of his divine nature. And he adds, as the sense of the words, as accom- modated unto Christ, “‘Thou hast laid the foundation of the earth; that is, ‘the world was made for thy sake.’” But this interpretation or violent detortion of the words destroys itself; for if they were spoken of God absolutely, and not of the Messiah, to whom they are accom- modated, how can it be said that the world was made for his sake, and not by him? Both senses of the words cannot be true. But
*this is indeed plainly to deny the authority of the apostle.
It appeareth, then, that many things in this psalm are spoken directly and immediately of the Son; though it be probable, also, that sundry things in it are affirmed distinctly of the person of the Father, And hence, it may be, are those frequent variations of speech from the second to the third person that occur in this psalm,
2. As to the second inquiry, the Socinians, who grant the divine authority of this epistle, and therefore cannot deny but that these words some way or other belong unto the Lord Christ, yet plainly perceiving that if they are wholly understood of him, there is an end of all their religion (the creation, not of a new world, but of that which was made of old, and which shall perish at the last day, being here ascribed unto him), fix here upon a new and peculiar evasion. “Some words,” they say, “of this testimony belong unto Christ” (so much they will yield to the authority of the apostle), “but not all of them;” whereby they hope to secure their own error. Now, because if this pretence hold not, this testimony is fatal to their persuasion, I hope it will not be unacceptable if in our pas- sage we do consider the distribution they make of the words accord- ing to their supposition, and the arguments they produce for the confirmation of their exposition, as they are managed by Crellius and Schlichtingius in their comment on this place.
(1.) He says that “this testimony doth so far belong unto Christ, as it pertaineth unto the scope of the writer of the epistle. This
VER. 10-12. ] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 199
scripture,” saith he, “as appears from verse 4, is to prove that after Christ sat down at the right hand of God, he was made more excel- lent than the angels; whereto the affirming that he made heaven and earth doth no way conduce.”
Ans. (1.) Suppose that to be the scope of the apostle which is intimated, how doth this author know that it suits not his purpose to show that the Lord Christ is God, by whom heaven and earth were made, seeing it is manifest that himself thought otherwise, or he had not produced this testimony thereof? (2.) The testimony is not unsuited unto the scope pretended; for whereas, in the ad- ministration of his office, the Son was apparently for a while made lower than the angels, he may in these words discover the equity of his after exaltation above them, in that in his divine nature and works he was so much more excellent than they. (3.) The true and proper design of the apostle we have before evinced; which is to prove the excellency of the person by whom the gospel was revealed, and his pre-eminence above men and angels; which nothing doth more unquestionably demonstrate than this, that by him the world was created, whence the assignation of a divine nature unto him doth undeniably ensue.
(2.) To promote this observation, he adds a large discourse about the use and application of testimonies out of the Old Testament in the New; and says that “they are made use of by the writers of it, either because of some agreement and likeness between the things intended in the one and the other, or because of some subordina- tion. In the former way, that which is spoken of the type is applied unto the antitype: and sometimes, for likeness’ sake, that which ‘was spoken of one thing is applied unto another; as, Matt. xv. 7, 8, our Saviour applies those words of Isaiah to the present Jews which were spoken of their forefathers.”
Ans. (1.) That which is spoken in the first place of an instituted type is also spoken of the antitype, or thing prefigured by it, so far as it is represented by the type, so that one thing teaches another ; and thereon the words have a double application, first to the type, ultimately to the antitype. But herein such testimonies as this have no concernment. (2.) The Scripture sometimes makes use of alle- gories, illustrating one thing by another, as Gal. iv. 21-25. Neither hath this any place here. (3.) That what is spoken of one person should, because of some similitude, be affirmed to be spoken of an- other, and in nothing agree properly unto him, is untrue, and not to be exemplified with any seeming instance. (4.) The words of Isaiah, chap. xxix, 13, which our Saviour makes use of, Matt. xv. 7-9, were a prophecy of the Jews who then lived, as both our Saviour ex- pressly affirms and the context in the prophet doth plainly declare.