as he had done to Gideon by causing fire to issue from a rock and consume the sacrifice which had been placed upon it. When Manoah knew that it was the angel of Jehovah, he said unto his wife, " We shall surely die, because we have seen God."
C. Different Modes of explaining these There are only three methods on which these and similar pas- sages in the Old Testament can with any regard to the divine au- thority of the Scriptures be explained. The one is that the angel of Jehovah is a created angel, one of the spirits who wait continu- ally on God and dq his will. The fact that he assumes divine titles, claims divine prerogatives, and accepts divine homage, is explained on the principle, that the representative has a right to the titles and honours of the Being, or person whom he represents. He speaks as God because God speaks through him. This hypothesis, AA'hich was early and extensively adopted, might be admitted if the cases of the kind were few in number, and if the person designated as the angel of Jehovah did not so obviously claim to be himself Jehovah. And what is a more decisive objection to this mode of interpretation, is the authority of the subsequent parts of the Word of God. These passages do not stand alone. The Church might well hesitate on the ground of these early revelations to admit the doctrine of a plurality of persons in the Godhead. If everywhere else in Scripture God were revealed as only one person, almost any degree of violence of interpretation might be allowed to bring these passages into harmony with that revelation. But as the re- verse is true ; as with ever increasing clearness the existence of three persons in the Godhead is made knov/n in Scripture, it becomes in the highest degree unnatural to explain these passages otherwise than in accordance with that doctrine. Besides, this we have the express testimony of the inspired writers of the New Testament, that the angel of the Lord, the manifested Jehovah who led the Israelites through the wilderness, and who dwelt in the temple, was Christ ; that is, was the Ao'yos, or Eternal Son of God, who became flesh and fulfilled the work which it Avas predicted the Messiah should accomplish. The Apostles do not hesitate to apply to Christ the language of the Old Testament used .to set forth the majesty, the works, or the kingdom of the Jehovah of the Hebrew Scriptures. (John xii. 41; Rom. xiv. 11; 1 Cor. x. 4 ; Heb. i. 10-13, and often elsewhere.) The New Testament, therefore, clearly identifies the Logos or Son of God with the Angel of Je- hovah, or Messenger of the Covenant, of the Old Testament.
490 PAET I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. VII. — Divinity op Christ
The second hypothesis on which these passages have been ex plained, admits that the angel of the Lord is a really divine per- son, but denies that he is personally distinguished from Jehovah. It was one and the same person who sent and was sent, was the speaker and the one spoken to. But this assumption does such violence to all just rules of interpretation, and is so inconsistent with the subsequent revelations of the Word of God, that it has found little favour in the Church. We are, therefore, shut up to the only other mode of explaining the passages in question, which has been almost universally adopted in the Church, at least since the Reformation. This assumes the progressive character of divine revelation, and interprets the obscure intimations of the early Scriptures by the clearer light of subsequent communications. The angel, who appeared to Hagar, to Abraham, to Moses, to Joshua, to Gideon, and to Manoah, who Avas called Jehovah and worshipped as Adonai, who claimed divine homage and exercised divine power, whom the psalmists and prophets set forth as the Son of God, as the Counsellor, the Prince of Peace, the mighty God, and whom they predicted was to be born of a virgin, and to whom every knee should bow and every tongue confess, of things in heaven and things on earth, and things under the earth, is none other than He whom we now recognize and worship as our God and Saviour Jesus Christ. It was the Adyos ao-apKos whom the Israelites Avorshipped and obeyed ; and it is the Adyos tVo-apKos whom we acknowledge as our Lord and God.
It is universally admitted that the Old Testament does predict a Messiah, one who was to appear in the fulness of time to effect the redemption of his people, and through whom the knowledge of the true religion was to be extended throughout the world. While it is clearly revealed that this Redeemer was to be the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Judah, and of the house of David, it was no less clearly revealed that He was to be a divine person. He is presented under the different aspects of a triumphant king, a suffering martyr, and a divine person. Some- times these representations are all combined in the descriptions given of the coming Deliverer ; sometimes the one, and sometimes the other view of his character is held up either exclusively or most prominently in the prophetic writings. They, however, aie all exhibited in the Hebrew Scriptures, as they all combine and har- monize in the person and work of our Lord and Saviour.
§l,D.l THE DIVIMTT OF CHRIST. 491
D. The Psalms.
In tlie second Psalm, the heathen are represented as combining against the Messiah, verses 1-3. God derides their efforts, verses 4, 5. He declares his purpose to constitute the Messiah king in Zion. That this Messiah is a divine person is plain : (1.) Because He is called the Son of God, which, as has been shown, implies equality with God. (2.) He is invested with universal and abso- lute dominion. (3.) He is the Jehovah whom the people are commanded in verse 11 to worship. (4.) Because all are required to acknowledge his authority and do Him homage. (5.) Be- cause those are pronounced blessed who put their trust in Him, whereas the Scriptures declared them to be cursed who put their trust in princes.
In the twenty-second Psalm, a sufferer is described whose words our Lord upon the cross appropriates to Himself, verses 1-19. He prays for deliverance, verses 19-21. The consequences of that deliverance are such as prove that the subject of the psalm must be a divine person. His sufferings render it certain, (1.) That all good men will fear and love God because He rescued this suf- ferer from his enemies. (2.) That provision will be made for the wants of all men. (3.) That all nations will be converted linto God. (4.) That the blessings which He secures will last forever.
In the forty-fifth Psalm a king is described who must be a divine person. (1.) Because his perfect excellence is the ground of the praise rendered to Him. (2.) Because his kingdom is de- clared to be righteous and everlasting. (3.) He is addressed as God, " Thy throne O God is for ever and ever," which is quoted Heb. i. 8, and applied to Christ for the very purpose of proving that He is entitled to the worship of all intelligent creatures. (4.) The Church is declared to be his bride, which implies that He is to his people the object of supreme love and confidence.
The seventy-second Psalm contains a description of an exalted king, and of the blessings of his reign. These blessings are of such a nature as to prove that the subject of the psalm must be a divine person. (1.) His kingdom is to be everlasting. (2.) Uni- versal. (3.) It secures perfect peace with God and good-will among men. (4.) All men are to be brought to submit to Him through love. (5.) In Him all the nations of the earth are to be blessed , i. e., as we are distinctly taught in Gal. iii. 16, it is in Him that all the blessings of redemption are to come upon the
492 PAKT I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. Vn. — Divinity of Christ.
world. The subject of this psalm, is therefore, the Redeemer of the world.