The Messiah in Moses and the Prophets

by Eleazar Lord

Probably the phraseology both of the Nicene and the Apostles’ Creed, in respect to the ascription of the works of creation to God the Father, having been adopted and followed by all succeeding writers of authority, was received and acquiesced in by all the Reformers and the different Protestant denominations, and thus, coinciding essentially with the Talmudists and Rabbinical Doctors, was in every way sanctioned and commended as an example to our translators.

In the Confession of Faith and Catechism of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and that of this country, there is indeed, in respect to the subject under consideration, a less exact copy than in earlier Confessions of the phraseology of the Nicene formula. The work of creation is, however, in no respect ascribed to the Mediator personally. The doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son is very distinctly avowed; and the works of creation are ascribed to God, though not with any restricted reference to the Father, as distinguished from the other Persons.

These brief references may serve to show that the ascription of the work of creation by some to the Father, in such a manner as to indicate that it is his personally, and by others to the Deity, in distinction from the delegated official Person and work of the Mediator, owed its origin primarily to the nature of the heresies and controversies by which the Church was agitated, and the methods of the orthodox in defending the doctrines of the Trinity and the Divinity of Christ, against the Judaizers, the Gnostics, the Arians, and others; and was handed down in their treatises and creeds from one age to another. In the same way the doctrine of eternal generation, and all the phraseology in the Nicene Creed, for example, respecting the Son, which is not to be found in like terms in the Holy Scriptures, appears to have arisen. And it is to be observed that, in close connection with these opinions as adopted by Protestants, is the doctrine that the personal and official work of the Mediator had respect only to the redemption of man, and commenced in personal acts not till his appearance incarnate.

In view of the origin, nature, and tendency of the heresies above referred to, their extended influence, and the manner in which they were controverted, one can hardly avoid the conclusion, that the order of Divine instruction in the most essential particulars was inverted, by the assumption of some and the acquiescence therein of others, that the Old Testament revealed only the one invisible Deity absolutely considered, as the Creator and Governor of the world, whose oneness or unity was so regarded by one class as to preclude the idea of any personal distinction in the Godhead; and so regarded by many others, who held both the unity and the distinction of Persons, as to lead them, irrespective of that distinction, to ascribe the works of creation and providence to the one Supreme Deity, or to the Father.

Of the class first above mentioned were the Jews at the period of the Incarnation. They therefore opposed and rejected the Messiah, on account of his Divine pretensions, making himself a distinct Person of the Godhead, equal with God. They looked not for a Messiah of such a character, nor for deliverance from sin through faith in his vicarious sufferings, nor for a salvation which was to be extended to the Gentiles. They held to justification by their ritual services and obedience to the law of Moses, and desired only a Messiah or leader who should deliver them from temporal evils.

There were, at that period, considerable numbers of Jews resident in the several provinces of the Roman empire, who, following the early examples of their kindred in Judea, opposed and persecuted those who believed in the Divinity of Jesus the crucified, as the true Messiah. At the same time they professed the utmost zeal for the doctrine of the Unity, and for the exclusive worship of the one Supreme Deity, and associated their rejection of the gospel and its Author with their vehement opposition to idolatry. As the preaching of the gospel was extended from Jerusalem to the provinces, many Jews professed to receive it, who, retaining their former religious opinions and prejudices, and setting up to be preachers, endeavored to subvert the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, and to subject the converts, real and nominal, to their notions of Judaism and of the ritual of Moses. These Judaizing teachers still insisted on justification by the works of the law, held firmly to their national prejudices, exclusive privileges, and hatred of the Gentiles, and to fortify themselves, joined with those Gentile heretics whose errors were consistent with their own.

The Jews themselves far exceeded all others in opposing the doctrines of the gospel, and persecuting those who embraced them. “Other nations,” says Justin Martyr to Trypho, [A. D. 115 or 120,] “are not so culpable for the injury that is done to us and to Christ himself, as you, who first caused them to entertain so great a prejudice against that Just One, and us his disciples and followers. For after you had crucified him who alone was unblamable and just, by whose stripes they are healed who come unto the Father by him; after ye knew that he was risen from the dead and ascended up into heaven, as the ancient prophecies foretold concerning him; ye were so far from repenting of those evil deeds which ye have committed, that even then ye dispatched from Jerusalem, into all countries, select missionaries, to inform them that the impious sect of Christians, lately sprung up, worshipped no God; and to spread abroad those false and scandalous reproaches which all that are unacquainted with us and our religion do even to this day lay to our charge.” Brown’s Version, sec. 17. The Jews denounced the Christians as atheists, because they worshipped the Christ as God, instead of restricting their homage to Him whom they regarded as the one Supreme, invisible Creator.

Under the influence so widely diffused from this source, and that of the heresies above referred to, the Church passed into the dark cloud of Popish superstition, ignorance, and imposture. The era of inspiration and miracles had passed. The idolatrous forms of paganism were transferred from the heathen to the so-called Christian temples. The theory of religion then, combining elements from Judaism, Oriental philosophy, Paganism, and Christianity, was practically accommodated to the heart of man in his natural state. Modes of interpretation were introduced, by which truth, so far as it was admitted, was made to serve all the ends and purposes of error. The Popish system, for example, while it retains, in terms, the doctrine of the Trinity, denies all those collateral and dependent truths which render that doctrine of any value in the affair of man’s salvation. It allows the Divinity of Jesus Christ, but supersedes him in respect to his sacerdotal and regal offices, and in effect denies his personality. In place of his atonement, it substitutes the Mass. To supersede or obviate his personal mediation, it offers, like Paganism, a thousand creature mediators. To nullify his personality, and the admission of his Divinity, it professes even to create him.

The subjects of controversy to which these heresies gave rise were such as, under the influence of certain controlling circumstances, unavoidably to change or modify the faith, in respect to some doctrines, of those who continued to be in the main evangelical. The circumstances referred to resulted from the nationalization of the Church, the assumption by the civil power of legislative authority over its doctrines and all its concerns, and the consequent prescription, under the severest penalties, of entire uniformity of faith and worship. Hence, when heresies arose and spread, Councils were called to suppress them, and to prescribe the rule of faith which was to be enforced. Their determinations, of course, must be in conformity not only with the opinions of a majority of those convened, but with the sentiments of the reigning emperor. Whenever he and the majority of those summoned to a Council were inclined to Arianism, image worship, and the like, those who held the primitive faith had to choose between a surrender of their principles and deposition, banishment, or death. The tendency of this course of things to drive the true confessors of Christ into the wilderness, and to induce the best of those who remained in the so-called Catholic Church to dissemble, and to adopt the sentiments and phraseology of those whom they deemed to be in error, is too apparent to require any illustration.

Now those controversies from the first with the Gnostics, the Cerinthians, Valentinians, Monarchians, Sabellians, Manichæans, Arians, and various others, related to the character of the Supreme Being, the Creator; the mode of Divine existence; the Trinity; the Person of Christ; and topics intimately connected with these. The changes and modifications of phraseology and sentiment which, for the sake of unity, or for other reasons, the more evangelical adopted, as in the Nicene Creed and in their theological writings, were regularly handed down to the period of the Reformation. These writings were studied, and had their influence with the Reformers, on their receding from the corruptions of Popery.