10. Captain of the Lord's Host—A Deity: But we have higher and better authority to which we can appeal—the scriptures. And here I pass by that marvelous appearance of God unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre, when three "men" came into his tent, one of whom was the Lord, who conversed with him, and partook of his hospitality, and disclosed to him His intention with reference to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. (Gen. xviii.)
I come now to that marvelous revelation of God to Joshua, when Joshua drew near to Jericho and saw a person in the form of a man standing with sword in hand. Joshua approached him and said: "Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?" "Nay," replied the person, "but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come." And Joshua bowed himself to the very earth in reverence, and worshipped that august warrior. (Joshua v: 13, 14.) Do not tell me that it was an "angel"; for had it been an angel, the divine homage paid by Israel's grand old warrior would have been forbidden. Do you not remember the time when John, the beloved disciple, stood in the presence of an angel and, awed by the glory of his presence, he bowed down to worship him, and how the angel quickly caught him up and said: "See thou do it not; for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God!" (Rev. xvii: 8, 9. Also Rev. xix: 10.) The fact that this personage, before whom Joshua bowed to the earth, received without protest divine worship from him, proclaims trumpet-tongued that He indeed was God. Furthermore, that personage bade Joshua to remove the shoes from his feet for even the ground on which he stood was holy.
I call attention to that marvelous vision given of the Son of God to the pagan king of Babylon. This king had cast the three Hebrew children into the fiery furnace, and lo! before his startled vision were "four men" walking about in the furnace, "and," said he, "the form of the fourth is like the Son of God." (Dan. iii: 25.)
The great Apostle to the Gentiles, writing to the Colossian saints, speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ, "in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins," as being in the "image of the invisible God." (Col. i, 15.) Again, writing to the Hebrew saints, and speaking of Jesus, he says: "Who, being the brightness of his [the Father's] glory, and the express image of his [the Father's] person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." (Heb. i: 1, 2.)
In the face of these scriptures, will anyone who believes in the Bible say that it is blasphemy to speak of God as being possessed of a bodily form? We find that the Son of God Himself stood among His fellows a man, with all the limitations, as to His body, which pertain to man's body; with head, trunk, and limbs; with eyes, mouth and ears; with affections, with passions; for He exhibited anger as well as love in the course of His ministry; He was a man susceptible to all that man could suffer, called by way of pre-eminence, the "man of sorrows," and one "acquainted with grief"; for in addition to His own, He bore the world's sins, and suffered that men might not suffer if they would but obey His gospel.
11. "What Think Ye of Christ?" What think ye of Christ? Is he God? Yes. Is he man? Yes—there is no doubting it. His resurrection, and the immortality of His body, as well as of His spirit that succeeds His resurrection, is a reality. He Himself attested it in various ways. He appeared to a number of the apostles, who, when they saw him, were seized with fright, supposing they had seen a spirit; but He said unto them, "Why are ye troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; handle Me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have." (Luke xxiv: 36-39.) Then, in further attestation of the reality of His existence, as if to put away all doubt, He said, "Have ye here any meat?" And they brought Him some broiled fish and honeycomb, and "He did eat before them." (Luke xxiv: 41-43.) Think of it! A resurrected, immortal person actually eating of material food! I wonder that our spiritually-minded friends, both philosophers and theologians, do not arraign Him for such a material act as that after His resurrection!
But not only did the risen Messiah eat in the presence of His disciples, but with His resurrected hands He prepared a meal on the seashore for His own disciples, and invited them to partake of the food which He, with His resurrected hands, had provided. (John xxi: 9-13, and Acts x: 41.) Moreover, for forty days He continued ministering to His disciples after His resurrection, eating and drinking with them (Acts x: 41, and Acts i: 2, 3); and then, as they gathered together on one occasion, lo! He ascended from their midst, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. Presently two personages in white apparel stood beside them and said. "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." (Acts I:11.) What! With His body of flesh and bones, with the marks in His hands and in His feet? Shall He come again in that form? The old Jewish prophet, Zechariah, foresaw that He would. He describes the time of His glorious coming, when His blessed, nail-pierced feet shall touch the Mount of Olives again, and it shall cleave in twain, and open a great valley for the escape of the distressed house of Judah, sore oppressed in the siege of their great city, Jerusalem. We are told that "They shall look upon Him Whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son," and one shall look upon Him in that day and shall say, "What are these wounds in Thy hands and in Thy feet?" and He shall answer, "These are the wounds that I received in the house of my friends." (Zech. the 12th, 13th and 14th chapters).
What think ye of Christ? Will that resurrected, immortal, glorified man ever be distilled into some bodiless, formless essence, to be diffused as the perfume of a rose is diffused throughout the circumambient air? Will He become an impersonal, incorporeal, immaterial God, without body, without parts, without passions? Will it be? Can it be? What think ye of Christ? Is He God? Is He an exalted man? Yes; in the name of all the Gods He is. And one wonders why Christian ministers arraign the faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because they believe and affirm that God is an exalted man, and that He has a body, tangible, immortal, indestructible, and will so remain embodied throughout the countless ages of eternity?—And since the Son is in the form and likeness of the Father, being, as Paul tells us, "in the express image of His [the Father's] person"—so, too, the Father, God must be a man of immortal tabernacle, glorified and exalted: for as the Son is, so also is the Father, a personage of tabernacle, of flesh and of bone as tangible as man's, as tangible as Christ's most glorious, resurrected body (See article in Improvement Era for March, 1910, for further treatment of this theme).
LESSON XXXIV.
(Scripture Reading Exercise.)