ing in the flesh. Hence such effects are ascribed to the knowledge of Christ, and to faith in Him ; such hopes are entertained of the glory and blessedness of being Avith Him, as would be impossible or irrational if Christ were not the true God. He is our lite. He that hath the Son hath life. He that believes on Hira shall live forever. It is not we that live, but Christ that liveth in us. Our life is hid with Christ in God. We are complete in Him, wanting nothing. Though we have not seen Him, yet believing in Him, we rejoice in Him with joy unspeakable. It is because Christ is God, because He is possessed of all divine perfections, and because He loved us and gave Himself for us, and hath redeemed us and made us kings and priests unto God, that the Spirit of God says, " If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maran- atha." The denial of the divinity of the Son of God, the refusal to receive, love, trust, worship, and serve Him as such, is the ground of the hopeless condemnation of all who hear and reject the gospel. And to the justice of this condemnation all rational creatures, holy and unholy, justified or condemned, will say. Amen. The divinity of Clu'ist is too plain a fact, and too momentous a truth, to be innocently rejected. Those are saved who truly believe it, and those are already lost who have not eyes to see it. He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life ; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. It is the doctrine of the New Testament, therefore, that the spiritual apprehension and the sincere recognition of the Godhead of the Redeemer con- stitutes the life of the soul. It is in its own nature eternal life ; and the absence or want of this faith and knowledge is spiritual and eternal death. Christ is our life ; and therefore he that hath not the Son hath not life.
C. The Relations which Christ hears to his People and to the World.
As the relation which believers consciously bear to Christ is that we can sustain to God only, so the relation which He assumes to us, which He claims as belonging to him in virtue of his nature as well as of his work, is that which God only can sustain to rational creatures.
His Authority as a Teacher.
This is plain as to the authority He assumes as a teacher both of truth and duty. Everything which He declared to be true, all
500 PART I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. VH. — Divinity of Chbibt.
Christians have ever felt bound to believe, without examination ; and all that He commanded them to do or to avoid, they have ever regarded as binding the conscience. His authority is the ultimate and highest ground of faith and moral obligation. As the infinite and absolute reason dwelt in Him bodily, his words were the Avords of God. He declared himself to be the Truth, and therefore to question what He said was to reject the truth ; to disobey Him was to disobey the truth. He was announced as the Aoyos, the personal and manifested Reason, which was and is the light of the world, — the source of all reason and of all knowledge to rational creatures. Hence He spake as never man spake. He taught with authority. He did not do as Moses and the prophets did, speak in the name of God, and say. Thus saith the Lord, referring to an authority out of themselves. But He spoke in his own name, and the Apostles in tlie name of Christ. He was the ultimate authority. He uni- formly places Himself in the relation of God to his people. Ye shall be saved " if ye do whatsoever I command you." He that heareth me heareth God. I and the Father are one ; He in me and I in Him. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall never pass away. Moses said unto you thus and so, but I say unto you. He did not deny the divine mission of Moses, but He assumed the right to modify or repeal the laws which God had given to his people under the old economy. The whole of revealed truth in the Old as well as in the New Testament is referred to Him as its source. For the ancient prophets taught nothing but what " the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify," which is equivalent to saying that they spake " as they were moved by the Holy Ghost ; " or " that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God." And the Apostles presented themselves simply as witnesses of w^hat Christ had taught. Paul declared that he received all his knowledge " by the revelation of Jesus Christ." And in his Epistle to the Corinthians he expresses the same truth by saying negatively, that his knowledge was not derived from human reason (the spirit that is in men), but from the Spirit of God. Nothing is more obvious to the reader of the New Testament than this divine authority as a teacher everywhere claimed by Christ and for Him. To disbelieve Him is to disbelieve God ; and to disobey Him is to disobey God. This is entirely different from the authority claimed by the prophets and Apostles. They assumed nothing for themselves. Paul disclaimed all authority over the faith of God's people, except on the ground of the proof which he gave that it was " Christ speaking in " him. (2 Cor. xiii. 3.)