1 Tim. iii. 16.
Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh; justified in the spirit; seen of Angels; preached to the Gentiles; believed on in the world; received up into glory.
The inspired writers, sometimes, dilate on the articles of the Christian religion; pursue them separately, and at length, for the fuller and more distinct information of the faithful. Sometimes, again, they give them to us, as it were, in clusters: they accumulate their awful doctrines and discoveries, to strike and astonish the mind with their united force.
This last is the method of the text, which I shall a little open and explain; but so as to conform myself to the Apostle’s purpose in giving a brief collective view of Christianity, that, the whole of it being seen together, we may be the more sensibly affected by it.
1. This great mystery of godliness opens with—God manifest in the flesh.
When the scheme of man’s redemption was laid, it was not thought fit that an Apostle, a prophet, a man like ourselves, no nor an Angel or Archangel, should be the instrument of it; but that the word of God, the Son of God, nay God himself (as he is here and elsewhere[63] called) should take this momentous office upon him: that heaven should stoop to earth, and that the divine nature should condescend to leave the mansions of glory, inshrine itself in a fleshly tabernacle, should be made man, should dwell among us, and die for us.
If you ask, why may not a man, or angel, have sufficed to execute this purpose of man’s salvation; or, if only this divine person was equal to it, why he did not rather assume a glorified, than our mortal body; why it was necessary for him to inherit all our infirmities (sin only excepted,) and yet be conceived, in so extraordinary a manner of the holy Spirit; nay, and why he should be so conceived, and born of a virgin (a miracle of that peculiar sort as scarce seems capable of proof, and, in fact, is only proved indirectly by the subsequent life and character and history of this divine person): If you ask these, and a hundred other such questions, I answer readily and frankly, I know not: But then consider, that my ignorance, that is, any man’s ignorance, of the reasons why these things were done, is no argument, not so much as a presumption against there being reasons, nay, and the best reasons, for so mysterious a dispensation. Consider, too, that these mysteries no way contradict any clear principle of your own reason: all that appears is, that you should not have expected, previously to the revelation of it, such a design to be formed; and that, now it is revealed, you do not understand why it was so conducted. But we are just in the same state of ignorance, with regard to almost every part of the divine conduct. This world, so unquestionably the work of infinite wisdom and goodness, is not, in numberless respects, what we should expect it to have been; of many parts we see not the use and end; in some, there is the appearance of deformity; in others, of mischief; in all, when attentively considered, of something above, or beside, our apprehension.
Such then being the case of the natural world, why may not the moral have its depths and difficulties? You see God in the creation: why not in redemption? In the former, he condescends, according to our best philosophy, to manifest himself in the meanest reptile, all whose instincts he immediately prompts, and whose movements he directs and governs: why then might he not manifest himself in man, though in another manner, and by an union with him still more close and intimate?
But I pursue these questions no farther. It is enough that, admitting the fact, on the faith of the revelation itself, we see a wonderful goodness and condescension in this whole procedure: that we understand the importance of having such a saviour and guide and example of life, as God manifest in the flesh; that we are led to conceive, with astonishment, of the dignity of man, for whose sake the Godhead assumed our nature, and, at the same time, with consternation, of the guilt of man, for the atonement of which this assumption, with all its consequences, became necessary.
God manifest in the flesh, is then the first chapter of this mysterious book: and yet, as mysterious as it is, full of the clearest and most momentous instruction.
2. The second is, that this wonderfully compounded person was JUSTIFIED IN THE SPIRIT: that is, by, or through the Spirit: another mystery, which, however, acquaints us with this fact, that a third divine person ministered in the great work of our redemption.
And his ministry was seen in directing the ancient prophets to foretell the Redeemer’s coming[64]; in accomplishing his miraculous conception[65]; in assisting at his baptism[66]; in conducting him through his temptation[67]; in giving him the power to cast out devils, which is expressly said to be by the Spirit of God[68]; in raising him from the dead, by which event he was declared the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness[69]; in descending on his disciples on the day of Pentecost[70]; in bestowing diversities of miraculous gifts[71] upon them, for the confirmation of his doctrine, and the propagation of it through the world; and lastly in sanctifying and illuminating the faithful of all times and places[72].
In all these ways (and if there be any other) Jesus was justified, that is, his commission was authenticated by the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Here, again, many curious questions may be asked: but what we clearly learn is, the awful relation we bear to the Holy Ghost, as co-operating in the scheme of man’s redemption; and the infinite dignity of that scheme itself, the execution of which required the agency of that transcendantly divine person.
Hitherto the mystery of godliness has been doubly mysterious, being wrapped up in the incomprehensible essence of the Deity. It now stoops, as it were, through this cloud of glory, and gives itself to be somewhat distinctly apprehended by us.
3. In the next view we have of the Redeemer, as being SEEN OF ANGELS.
We have some grounds from analogy to conclude, that, as there is a scale of beings below us, there is also one above us: at least, the conclusion has been pretty generally drawn: and the belief almost universal of such a scale ascending from us to God, though the uppermost round of it still be at an infinite distance from his throne. But the direct, indeed the only solid proof of its existence, is the revealed word, which speaks of Angels and Archangels, nay myriads[73] of them, disposed into different ranks, and rising above each other in a wonderful harmony and proportion.
Such is the idea which scripture gives us of the invisible world. Now, to raise our minds to some just apprehension of the great scheme of our redemption, it represents that world, as being put in motion by that scheme, as attentive and earnest to look into it[74]: and, to exalt our conceptions of the Redeemer himself, it speaks of that world as being in subjection to him; of all its inhabitants, the highest in place and dignity, as serving in his retinue, and paying homage to his person[75].
They accordingly ministered to him in this capacity, when they celebrated his birth in the fields of Bethlehem[76]; when they took part with him in his triumphs over the adversary in the desart[77]: when they flew to strengthen him in his last agonies[78]; when they attended, in their robes of state to grace his resurrection[79]: and when they ranked themselves, with all observance, about him, as he went up into heaven[80].
Of the angels, then, he was seen, on all these, and doubtless other, occasions. But how was he seen? With love and wonder unspeakable, when they saw their Lord and Master thus humbling himself for the sake of man; when they contemplated this bright effulgence of the Deity, the express image of his person[81], veiling all his glories in flesh, and,
—low-rooft beneath the skies,
as our great poet sublimely represents his humiliation[82].
Still the mystery continues, though it now submits itself to the scrutiny of our senses; for it follows,
4. That he was PREACHED TO THE GENTILES.
To enter into the full meaning of this clause, we are to reflect, That, when the nations of the earth had so prodigiously corrupted themselves as to lose the memory of the true religion, and to give themselves over to the most abominable impieties, it pleased God to select one faithful family from the rest of the degenerate world, and in due time to advance it into a numerous people; which he vouchsafed to take into a near relation to himself, and, by a singular policy, to preserve distinct and separate from the surrounding tribes of Idolaters. Henceforth, the Jews (for of that people I speak) considered themselves as the sole favourites of Heaven (as they were, indeed, the sole worshippers of the true God), and all the heathen as the outcasts of its providence.
This notion, in process of time, became so rooted in them, that when Jesus now appeared in Judea, they were ready to engross all his favours to themselves, and thought it strange and incredible, that any part of them should be conferred on the reprobate heathen. So that he himself was obliged to proceed with much caution in opening the extent of his commission, and St. Paul everywhere speaks of the design to save the Gentiles as the profoundest mystery, as that which had been kept secret since the world began[83].
In the mean time, the mercy of God had much larger views, and sent the Messiah to be the saviour of ALL men, especially of them, out of every nation, that believe[84].
But this mercy, so mysterious to the Jews, could not be much less so to the Gentiles, who must feel how disproportioned the blessing was to any deserts of man; and who saw how enormous and how general that corruption was, which in all likelihood must exclude them from it. Thus it might reasonably be matter of silent wonder[85], to both parties, to hear Christ preached to the Gentiles: only, this latter (of which party we ourselves are) might say with a peculiar exultation, what the Jews, even in glorifying the Author of it, were not, without some reluctance, brought to acknowledge; Then hath God, also, to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.
And if the surprize be deservedly great to hear Christ preached to the Gentiles, it must in all reason grow upon us to find,
5. In the succeeding link of this mysterious chain, that he was even BELIEVED ON IN THE WORLD; that is, in the world both of Jews and Gentiles; in the former, to a certain extent; and, in the latter, to one which, though not universal, is truly astonishing.
Of the Jews it is affirmed, that multitudes[86] of them believed: and what especially redounds to their honour and to our benefit, is, that out of the Jewish believers were taken those favoured servants of God, that opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, and became his instruments in conveying the light of the Gospel to all generations. And, considering the inveterate prejudices of that people, such a measure of faith, and such effects of it, could not well have been expected from that quarter.
But then, for the Gentiles, it is astonishing to observe how quick and how general their conversion to the faith was: so that all men seemed to press[87] into the kingdom of God, and, as it were, to take it by violence[88]. For, within forty years from the death of Christ, the sound of the Gospel had gone out into all lands[89]; and, in less than three centuries from that event, the empire itself, that is, all the civilized part of the earth, became Christian: and this, in spite of every obstruction, which the lusts of men, operating with all their force, and confederated together, could throw in the way of the new religion.
So mightily grew the word of God, and prevailed[90]! and it still prevails: not every where indeed, nor any where to that degree in which, we trust, it one day will; but to a certain degree over a great part of the globe, and especially in the more enlightened parts of it: an evident proof, that reason is congenial with faith; and that nothing but ignorance, corrupted by vice, can hold out against the cross of Jesus.
Yet this power of the cross must be thought prodigious; since its pretensions are so high, and its doctrine so pure, that, in a world overgrown with presumption and vice, it could never have made its way to so much consideration, if the hand of God had not been with it.
Such is the mystery of Christ believed on in the world!
But now the Apostle, who had digressed a little from his main subject, or rather had anticipated some part of it, returns, from the effects which Christianity was to have on the world, to the person of its divine Author; who, as it follows in the
6. Sixth, and last clause of this panegyrick, WAS RECEIVED UP INTO GLORY.
And this circumstance was proper to shut up so stupendous a scene. It opened with a view of God manifest in the flesh, degraded, eclipsed, obscured by this material vestment; yet emerging out of its dark shade through the countenance of the spirit, and by the ministry of angels; then shining out in the face of the Gentiles, and gradually ascending to his meridian height in the conversion of the whole world. Yet was this prize of glory to be won by a long and painful conflict with dangers, sufferings, and death; in regard to which last enemy (the most alarming of all) the Apostle affirms, that it was not possible for so divine a person to be holden of it[91]. It follows, therefore, naturally and properly (to vindicate the Redeemer’s honour, and to replace him in that celestial state, from which he had descended), that, in his own person, he triumphed over hell and the grave, and went up visibly into heaven; there to sit down at the right hand of the Father, till, his great mediatorial scheme being accomplished, he himself shall voluntarily quit the distinction of his name and place, and GOD SHALL BE ALL IN ALL[92].
On this brief comment on the text, thus far unfolded to you, I have but one reflexion to make. Ye will not derive from it a clearer insight into the reasons of all the wonders presented to you: for I undertook only to lay before you those wonders themselves; not to account to you for them: but, if ye feel yourselves touched with a view of these things; if ye find your hearts impressed with an awful sense of your divine religion, and nourished[93] in the faith of it, then will ye be in a way to reap that fruit from this discourse, which is better than all wisdom and all knowledge; the fruit of HOLINESS, in this short but unspeakably momentous stage of your existence; and of HAPPINESS without measure, and without end, in the kingdom of glory.