The Messiah in Moses and the Prophets

by Eleazar Lord

His office, accordingly, placed him as the medium of all relations and communications between the invisible Deity and creatures; and his official undertaking comprised the works of creation, providence, and redemption; the manifestation of the Divine perfections; the vindication of the Divine prerogatives, laws, and government; the redemption of lost men; the union, confirmation and blessedness of all holy creatures under him as King, and the subjection and punishment of Satan, the fallen angels and wicked men.

From the nature of intelligent creatures, and their relations to one another and to material objects, the execution of this undertaking required a course of external and visible facts connected both with his and their agency. They were to be instructed both in respect to themselves and to him; and as the visibility of their persons and acts was necessary to their instruction concerning one another, the visibility of his person and acts was necessary on the same account.

It is evident that the Mediator has, officially, relations to the holy angels, not only as their Creator, but in other respects. They are required to worship him in that character, i. e., in the character in which he came into the world. Heb. i. 6. They are employed in executing the measures of his mediatorial administration. Heb. i. 14. They attended his person on the occasion of his advent, his temptation, his sufferings and resurrection, and join his people in their songs and praises, in view of his final triumph and exaltation.

As Mediator, he is invested with all power in heaven and earth. All judgment is committed to him in that capacity, “because he is the Son of man,” the official Person; and we must conclude that his official work comprises all Divine operations relating to creatures.

In the phraseology both of the Old and New Testaments, where God is represented as acting or speaking, the expression in most cases is such as would occur were there no distinction of persons in the Godhead, unless we understand, wherever the text does not in terms or in the nature of the subject indicate another reference, that the appellations, Elohim, Jehovah, Messenger Jehovah, &c., are employed to designate the Mediator, personally and officially. But so understood, he stands forth the external representative, the visible image, the outward manifestation, the official agent, the messenger of the Father, and as such reveals Him; and by the mission and coöperation of the Holy Spirit in the work of redemption, that Divine Person is made known. The entire scheme respecting the creation and government of creatures being in the counsels of eternity assigned to the second Person, as the official agent and messenger delegated and sent of the Father, it appertained to him to make known to creatures all that they are to know of the being and perfections of the One God and the distinction of persons in the Godhead.

Accordingly the Deity, without any special indication of personal or official relations, is often referred to under the terms Jehovah and Elohim, where the object required only a distinction of divine from creature attributes or agency. In this way, in one class of passages, God is said to do the same things which in another class are expressly ascribed to the Messenger Jehovah, the Christ, the Word.

But where a reference is made to any thing in the economy of redemption, or any thing involving official acts or relations, official titles are introduced, or a phraseology is employed, by which the intended meaning is expressed. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are clearly distinguished, or their personality, relations and agency are indicated by the nature of the things recorded, or by the connections in which they occur.

It is in this view that we understand all those passages in which the divine names and the official titles of the Mediator are interchangeably applied to the same Person. In all such cases the things affirmed are in other passages affirmed of the Messiah, under titles which exclusively belong to him. He is in this manner announced in the Old Testament as Jehovah, the Elohe of Abraham, the Creator, &c. The patriarchs and prophets knew God, as manifested in him in his delegated, official, personal character. That they were enlightened in respect to the invisible Deity absolutely considered, and in respect to the distinction of Persons, is no more to be doubted than that they were enlightened as to the great Revealer. The sublime conceptions proper to this subject were undoubtedly so imparted, received, and cherished as to render the doctrine of mediation and of the delegated personal character of the Mediator an intelligible and practical doctrine. This may be inferred, not only from all that is recorded concerning the religion of the patriarchs, the sacrifices, prayers, types and symbols connected with their worship, but also from the theory of the earliest idolatry, which was a rival system, and was based upon the idea of mediation between a supreme invisible Deity and creatures, and consisted in regarding as mediators created intelligences, supposed to reside in the planetary orbs, and in images or idols as their representatives. It is obvious, indeed, from the nature of the case, that where any notion of mediation and a Mediator prevailed, and was indicated in the rites and institutions of worship, there, and, above all, under a system of revealed religion and acceptable worship, an apprehension more or less distinct, enlarged and just of the invisible Deity, of the concealed as well as of the revealed God, must have been entertained.

Nevertheless, concerning this subject much was reserved to be taught by the Mediator in his incarnate state, when the distinction of Persons in the Godhead and their official designations could be rendered plain by his visible personal acts, his verbal explanations, and the agency and gifts ascribed to the Holy Spirit. This was in accordance with the progress and analogy of revelation in other respects. Besides, we may well believe that there was originally, and during the Mosaic period, extreme difficulty in instructing men on those high themes concerning the invisible and spiritual, as may be inferred from the rooted and lasting propensity of the Israelites to visible symbols and material images, and from the limited prevalence of the clearer inculcations of the gospel down to the present day. Men did not and do not like to retain God in their knowledge.

Hence the language of our Saviour in teaching the Divine unity and spirituality, and the distinction, offices and relations of the Persons of the Godhead. He taught that God is a Spirit, invisible, infinite, eternal, unchangeable; of himself, that he came out from God; came forth from the invisible to the visible world; that he should withdraw from the visible to the invisible, so as not to be seen; that he should afterwards visibly reäppear; that God the Father sent him; that the power which he exercised in his miracles was a divine attribute, and proved his divinity; that those who witnessed his miracles, witnessed the exercise of the power of the invisible Deity, which was the power of the Father who had sent him, as well as his own; and therefore they saw the Father in the same works in which they saw him; for in respect to their nature as divine, He and the Father were one.