Obs. IX. Whatever God designs, appoints, and calls any unto, he will provide for them all that is needful unto the duties of obedience whereunto they are so appointed and called—aAs he prepared a body for Christ, so he will provide gifts, abilities, and faculties suit- able unto their work, for those whom he calleth unto it. Others must provide as well as they can for themselves.
But we must yet inquire miore particularly into the nature of this preparation of the body of Christ, here ascribed unto the Father. And it may be considered two ways:—
(1.) In the designation and contrivance of it. So “preparation” is
462 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. xX.
. sometimes used for “predestination,” or the resolution for the effecting any thing that is future in its proper season, Isa, xxx. 33; Matt. xx. 23; Rom. ix. 23; 1 Cor. ii, 9. - In this sense of the word God had prepared a body for Christ; he had in the eternal counsel of his will determined that he should have it in the appointed time. So he was “ foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for us,” 1 Pet. i. 20.
(2.) In the actual effecting, ordering, and creating of it, that it might be fitted and suited unto the work that it was ordained unto.
In the former sense the body itself is alone the object of this pre- paration. “ A body hast thou prepared me;” that is, ‘ designed for me. The latter sense compriseth the use of the body also; it is fitted for its work. ‘This latter sense it is that is proper unto this | place; only it is spoken of by the psalmist in a prophetical style, wherein things certainly future are expressed as already performed. For the word signifies such a preparation as whereby it is made actually fit and meet for the end it is designed unto. And there- fore it is variously rendered, “to fit, to adapt, to perfect, to adorn, to make meet,” with respect unto some especial end. ‘Thou hast adapted a body unto my work; fitted and suited a human nature unto that I have to perform in it and by it.’ A body it must be; yet not every body, nay, not any body brought forth by carnal gene- ration, according to the course of nature, could effect or was fit for the work designed unto it. But God prepared, provided such a body for Christ, as was fitted and adapted unto all that he had to do in it. And this especial manner of its preparation was an act of infinite wisdom and grace. Some instances thereof may be men- tioned ; as,—
[1.] He prepared him such a body, such a human nature, as might be of the same nature with ours, for whom he was to accomplish his work therein. For it was necessary that it should be cognate and allied unto ours, that he might be meet to a¢t on our behalf, and to suffer in our stead. He did not form him a body out of the dust of the earth, as he did that of Adam, whereby he could not have been of the same race of mankind with us; nor merely out of nothing, as he created the angels, whom he was not to save, — See Heb. ii. 14-16, and the exposition thereon. He took our flesh and blood, proceeding from the loins of Abraham.
[2.] He so prepared it as that at should be no way subject unto that depravation and pollution that came on our whole nature by sin. This could not have been done had his body been prepared by. carnal generation, the way and means of conveying the taint of original sin which befell our nature, unto all individual persons; for He would have rendered him every way unmeet for his whole — work of mediation. See Luke i. 35; Heb. vii. 26.
[3.] He prepared him a body consisting of flesh and blood,
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VER. 5-10.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 463
which might be offered as a real substantial sacrifice, and wherein he might suffer for sin, in his offering to make atonement for it. Nor could the sacrifices of old, which were real, bloody, and sub- stantial, prefigure that which should be only metaphorical and in appearance. The whole evidence of the wisdom of God in the in- stitution of the sacrifices of the law depends on this, that Christ was to have a body consisting of flesh and blood, wherein he might answer all that was prefigured by them.
[4.] It was such a body as was animated with a living, rational soul. Had it been only a body, it might have suffered as did the beasts under the law,—from which no act of obedience was required, only they were to suffer what was done unto them. But in the sacrifice of the body of Christ, that which was principally respected, - and whereon the whole efficacy of it did depend, was his obedience unto God. For he was not to be offered by others, but he was to offer himself, in obedience unto the will of God, Heb. ix. 14; Eph. v. 2. And the principles of all obedience lie alone in the powers and faculties of the rational soul. |