b Compare Matt. xii. 8. with the text. c John viii. 41.
d "Iciov Jlarepa, his oivn, in the most appropriate sense. e John x. 37, 38.
that, in fact, they who did not thus honour the Son did not truly honour the Father who had sent him*.]
From hence we may see, II. What construction we must put upon them —
If the Jews were right in their construction of our Lord's assertion, then we must regard his words, 1. As an avowal of his own proper divinity —
[When, on another occasion, our Lord had said, " I and my Father are one, the Jews took up stones to stone him ;" and when our Lord said, " Many good works have I shewed you from my Father ; for which of them do ye stone me ? they answered, For a good work we stone thee not ; but for blasphemy ; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God%." And truly, if he was not God, they were correct in their judgment. For what should we say if Moses or St. Paul had used such lansfuasre, and founded on their relation to the Deity a right, a personal right, to supersede the laws which God himself had instituted? should we not have accounted them guilty of blasphemy ? Then so was Christ, if he was no more than man. But, in fact, he spoke only what all the prophets had long since declared concerning him. " He, though a child born, and a son given, was the Mighty Godh;" " Jehovah's fellow V " Jehovah our Righteousness k." And to the same effect all his holy Apostles also testify respecting him. Did the Father create, and does he also uphold, the world? This is true of the Son likewise; as St. Paul expressly asserts: " For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers ; all things were created by him, and for him : and he is before all things, and by him all things consist1." Again it is said, that " God hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things ; by whom also he hath made the worlds ; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, upholdeth all things by the word of his power™" What a confirmation is here of those words of our Lord, " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work ! " What a confirmation, too, of the construction put upon them by the Jews, " that he made himself equal with God11!" Yes, truly, " being in the form of God, even in his incarnate state he
f ver. 19—23. * John x. 30—33. •' Isai. ix. 6.
1 Zech. xiii. 7. k Jer. xxiii. G. ' Coi. i. 16, 17.
m Heb. i. 1,3.
n ver. 19. ravra Kal b Ytog bfioiwg Troiei, He doth the same things in the same manner.
1625.] Christ's equality with the father. 327
thought it not robbery to be equal with God0:" and the very words which were used by him on this occasion must be consi- dered as an open avowal, on his part, that he was " God mani- fest in the flesh p," even " God over all, blessed for evermore q."]
2. As a warrant to us to rely upon him for all that we stand in need of —
" In him," as we have said, " dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily1." " In him, too, as Mediator, there is all fulness treasured ups," that " out of his fulness all his people should receive*." He is constituted " Head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in allu." Let us only see what he did, when on earth, to
the bodies of men : that he now doeth to their souls ■