The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 46

<'ntcrcd into tho mind of Israel that tho ps:tlmist (Ps. xxxiii. 6) snys, "By the wor,1 ()f tho Lord were the hol\vens made," where tho LXX'.. uses the word ,\&-yo, ror tho Hebrew 1J1. In Pa. cxlvil. 15, "The worcl of the Lord runneth very swiftly," is one of the tor'ms used to describe the creative and providential government of Goel (cf. Isa.. Iv. 11 ). The 'l'nrgums, which represent the Palestinian teaching of tho Jewish schools in their trnnslations and parnphrnses of the Old Testament, even the oldest and most r,recious of them, that of Onkelos, substitute for" Goel" the periphrasis of hi~ "Word." fhoy used continually the terms "Debura." and "Memra." Thus, '' the \Vorel of tho Lord" was with Ishmael in the wilclorness (Gen. xxi. 20). Jacob made a. covenant that "the Word of the Lord should be bis God" (Gen. xxviii. 21). In multitudes of instances " the Word" is substituted by these .Arama.ic translators for the direct representation of God's presence or activity. They hoped thereby in some degree to bridge the otherwise boundless diRtance l1etween the Eternal One and the creatures of his hand. They sought, on the basis of Divine revelation, to maintain the communica- tion between God and man, while striving to uphold the Divine majesty; and they sought to avoid by these means the anthropomorphisms which might lead the incau- tious reader into unworthy conceptions of the glory of the Lord. Siegfried attributes this usage of the 'l'argums to Philo; but the method of the 'l'argumist differs from that of Philo. (b) The entire doctrine of "the angel of the Lord," which pervades the Old Testa- ment, indicates, as within the bosom and mystery of the Divine Being, the conception of certain inherent relations of awful sublimity. '!'he Angel or Messenger of Jehovah at times is used interchangeably with Jehovah himself, and invested with all his glory. Gen. xxxii. 24; Exod. xxxiii. 14; Hos. xii. 4; Isa. lxiiL 9; and Mal. iii. 1, convey the assurance that the manifestation, the active energy, the covenant-making grace of God is to be distinguished from the created angel, on the one hand, who is distinguished from "the Presence," and from the Eternal ONE, who, s:1v<J in and through his chosen Organ and Agent, "dwells," as St. Paul says, '' in unapproachable light, whom no man hath seen or can see." 1 Tbe fourth evangelist expressly refers the Adon of Isa. vi. 1 to the pre-existent Christ, or Logo8. Before him the seraphim veil their face~, and yet his voice is heard, and awful glory confounds his ea.rthborn worshipper. This conception of the Divine Angel had been utilized by Philo, in his allegoric interpret.1.- tion, to represent the operations of the Logos in the region of mental-moral discipline; but the Fourth Gospel discerns its bearing on the fundamental nature of the Lord Ch:rist. He who had in various theophanies manifested himself to Abraham and Jacob, to Hagar and Moses, to Joshua and Mauoah, to Isaiah and Zechariah, etc., "c:ime into the world,'' "became flesh, and tabernacled amongst us." 'l'he preparation was laid in the Old Testament, the Alexandrines resolved it into a sacred metaphysic, the apostles into the agelong witness of the possibility of a concrete historic revelation. Another parallel line of meditation pervades what bas been called the Chokmah teaching, or the Old Testament doctrine of" wisdom,'' which in Alexandria, but before the days of Philo, had approached a personification of this great perfection of God, and reveals its influence on the New Testament writings. We would not say that more than a personification ca.n be found in Prov. viii.; yet the occurrence of this phraseo- logy within the bosom of pure Hebrew monotheism, and one which refers to such an aspect or affirmation of the Divine essence as eternal Wisdom, the Creator, Guide, and Guardian of all things, and as answering to certain peculiarities of the human con- sciousness and experience, is clearly an important factor in the creation of those senti- ments concerning the Son which we find in the Epistles to the Colossians and Hebrews. There can be little doubt, e.g., that the author (Heb. i. 1, 2) had in mind the language of the Book of Wisdom, where phrases which the writer of the Epistle claimed to bo descriptive of the Divine element in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, had already been attributed to· Wisdom. Apart from the theology of this famous passage, it 1 See dissertation on" The Angel of the Loru," in Kurtz, • The 01<! Coven1mt,' Eng. trnns., vol. i., where he oritioizes his own former view and Hengstcnberg's, and maintaiu.s that ull the nngelo.phnnies are thoae of a cua!ed angel. But see also I. Pyo Suith, 'Scripture Testimony, vol. i.; G. Steward,' l\Iediatorinl Sovereignty;' Stanley Lenthes, 'Witness of the Old Testameut to Christ;' Lidtlon's Ilnmpton Lecture, •Tho Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ,' lecture ii., es11coially useful in trnring the Patristic view of the Theophanics.  Ji, lNTllODUCTION '1'0