This phraseology, as to its signification, is not peculiar to Moses, but is used by the other sacred writers also, and exactly accords with the whole tenor of Divine revelation. The creation of the world is ascribed to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as joint, concurring, equal, and efficient causes thereof, in the Scriptures. It will not surely be presuming too much, says Bishop Huntingford, if we suppose Joshua and Solomon to be more deeply instructed in the Jewish Religion, than to be capable of using improper language respecting the Deity. Yet the former says, “Ye cannot serve the Lord: for he is the Holy Gods;” and the latter says, “The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom; and the knowledge of the Holies is understanding.”[13] Such is the phraseology of the Hebrew text. In these passages, and others that might be produced, the word in the Hebrew is in the plural number, because of the plurality of persons in the Godhead; but in our translation it is in the singular number, because of the unity of their essence.
But more particularly. The creation of the world is ascribed to Jehovah: “I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded. I am the Lord that maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself.” He had no moving causes exciting him to create matter and produce a universe, but his own will, goodness, wisdom, and power. He created all things himself, without the assistance of any instruments. The prophet ascribes to God alone the framing and stretching out of the heavens and the earth without the counsel, direction, or ministry of any subordinate agency. “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding?” He created all things without any toil, labor, change, or alteration in himself. There was not in him any transition from rest to labor, from idleness to business, from strength to weariness. Though “every good and perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights,” yet “with him there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” The Prophet says, “Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?” And he proceeded in the work of creation without any delay: it was not a successive forming of things by alteration, which required much time to render them perfect, but was as in a moment, as quickly and readily as a word is spoken, produced in the rapid succession as recorded by Moses. This work then God is said to have done alone, to the exclusion, not of the Son and the Spirit, but of all that are not God by nature; and by himself, to the exclusion of all second causes or inferior agents.
It is ascribed also to the Son of God. The evangelist John asserts in very express terms the Divinity of Jesus Christ, of the truth of which he designed his whole Gospel should be a proof. “In the beginning was the Λογος Word.” By the εν αρχη beginning, here, we are to understand the beginning of the creation, not the beginning of the gospel state, as the Socinians say. We have the authority of s, that εν αρχη is taken from בראשית Bereshith, Gen. i, 1, translated by the Septuagint εν αρχη, and consequently must signify, from the beginning of the creation of God. It is not said, that he was made in the beginning, but that he was in the beginning, did exist when the world began, which is of the same import as if he said, he was from eternity; for he that did exist in the beginning, never did himself begin to be. The personal Wisdom of God says, “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.”—“And the Logos,” or “Word, was with God.” He could be with no creature, because there was no creature in being; and therefore it is very properly said, that he “was with God,” the Father; and his being with him shows, that he is a distinct person or subsistence from the Father.—“And the Logos,” or “Word was God.” Though he is a person distinct from that of the Father, yet he is of the very same essence with him. He that was with God, was God; and if he was God in the beginning, that is from eternity, he is the same still, he cannot cease to be what he was. Here then the evangelist asserts the eternal existence of Christ, his personal co-existence with the Father, and that he is of the very same undivided nature and essence with him. Though he is a person distinct from the Father, yet he is of the same substance, equal with him in all divine perfections; not a secondary God, inferior to the Father, as the Arians assert. “All things were made by him.” All things, from the highest angel to the meanest worm, were made by him, not as a subordinate instrument, but as a co-ordinate agent, as a joint efficient cause, co-operating with the Father in this work. ‘To say that Christ made all things by a delegated power from God, is absurd; because the thing is impossible. Creation means, causing that to exist that had no previous being: this is evidently a work which can be effected only by omnipotence. Now God cannot delegate his omnipotence to another: were this possible, he to whom this omnipotence was delegated, would, in consequence, become God; and he from whom it was delegated, would cease to be such: for it is impossible that there should be two omnipotent beings.’ “And without him was not any thing made that was made.” This is added for the more certainty, it being usual with the Hebrews, when they would affirm that a thing is so indeed, to confirm by a particular negative what they had before affirmed. Our Lord said to the Jews, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” The phrase ὡς αρτι signifies “to this time,” “to the present,” that is, in all works whatever. Hence he is no creature, or he must have created himself; and if he created himself, he must have been in existence and not in existence at the very same time, which is both contradictory and absurd. And if every work performed by the Father was equally performed by the Son, the Son must, in all respects, be equal to the Father, in nature and perfections. This our Lord’s words signify and imply, and in this sense the Jews understood him—as “making himself equal with God.”[14] “He is the image of God,” the πρωτοτοχος “first producer of every creature: for by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers:” all the angels, however diversified in rank or employment in the heavenly world; and all the rational, animal, vegetable, and inanimate creatures, belonging to this terrestrial abode: “all things were made by him,” as the efficient cause, “and for him,” as the last end.—“God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds,” i.e. the heavens and the earth. The Father does all by the Son, and the Son does all from the Father. Whatsoever the Father does, that also does the Son likewise. “Unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, oh God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thy hands.” In these passages the Divinity of Christ is plainly asserted, and the operations of his power are proofs of his Godhead. He that is the Creator of all things is God: but Christ is the Creator of all things; therefore Christ is God. He calls himself “the Beginning of the creation of God,” where the word αρχη means the Creator, the efficient Cause of all things, he by whose power the creation had its beginning and perfection. And “he that built all things is God.”
The learned Jacob Bryant wrote a very valuable Tract entitled, The sentiments of Philo Judæus concerning the ΛΟΓΟΣ, or Word of God; from which the following are quotations. “Philo Judæus speaks at large in many places of the Word of God, the second person, which he mentions as the second Divinity, the great Cause of all things, and styles him as Plato, as well as the Jews, had done before, the Logos. Of the Divine Logos or Word he speaks in many places, and maintains at large the Divinity of the second Person, and describes his attributes in a very precise and copious manner, styling him the second Deity, who is the Word of the supreme God, his first-begotten Son; and the image of God. In his treatise upon creation, he speaks of the Word as the Divine operator by whom all things were disposed: and mentions him as superior to the angels and all created beings, and the image and likeness of God, and says, that this image of the true God was esteemed the same as God. This Logos, the Word of God, says he, is superior to all the world, and more ancient; being the productor of all that was produced. The eternal Word of the everlasting God is the sure and fixed foundation upon which all things depend.”
Creation is moreover ascribed to the Holy Spirit. That the Holy Spirit has a personality distinct from that of the Father, and also that of the Son, and a real and proper Divinity, is a doctrine of Divine revelation. In his personal capacity, he is not the Father, nor the Son. He neither is nor can be divided either from the Divine essence, nor from the other two persons, but yet is personally distinct from them. His relation to, and mission by, the Father and the Son, clearly evince his personal distinction. He is called the Spirit of the Father, and the Spirit of the Son. He is represented as sent by the Father, and also as sent by the Son. These things show that he is a Divine person, and has a distinct personality. The Holy Spirit is the last in the order of subsistence: the Father is the first, the Son is the second, and the Holy Spirit is the third. Yet we should know, that the Father is not before the Son, nor the Son before the Holy Spirit, by a priority of time, nor of dignity and perfections; for the three persons in the Divine essence are co-eternal.
The Holy Spirit was equally concerned with the Father and the Son in the work of Creation. “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath (Heb. Spirit) of his mouth.” The breath or spirit of the Lord’s mouth, says an excellent author, does undoubtedly mean the third person of the Trinity; who is called, “The Spirit of God, and the Breath of the Almighty.”—“They lift up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that therein is. Who, by the mouth of thy servant David, hast said,” &c. The terms Lord and God are here used to express the Divinity of him, says the same able writer, who spake by the mouth of his servant David. But it was the Holy Ghost who spake by the mouth of his servant David—for, saith St. Peter, “This Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost,” by the mouth of David, “spake,” &c. Therefore the terms Lord and God are certainly used to express the Divinity of the Holy Ghost.[15] In the work of creation, the “Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” by an infinite vitality infusing life, and with a formative energy giving form. “By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens” with an incalculable number of luminous stars; all those glittering worlds, which serve for use as well as beauty, were formed by the Spirit of God.
As none but the third Person in the Godhead is ever so much as once in the Scriptures called the Spirit of God; so the Holy Spirit’s agency in the work of creation evinces his distinct personality, and is a confirmation of his proper Divinity. A cause must be equal to the effect it produces: but no finite spirit could be a joint, concurring, efficient cause in the work of the creation: therefore the Holy Spirit is God. Supposing the matter of which the worlds were made to be called into being out of nothing by the Almighty power of the Father, or by the fiat of the Son; yet the animating of the whole lifeless mass, the putting of every part into motion, the assortment of all the particles, the assigning of them their proper places, and the completing of the whole with such astonishing beauty and harmony, which was the peculiar work of the Holy Spirit, required no less than an almighty power, which clearly demonstrates that he is God.
Thus we see that the creation of the world is ascribed to one God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Son and the Holy Spirit were joint Creators, of equal power, and equal efficiency with the Father. There is no where to be found in the Scriptures the least hint of different degrees of creating energy, nor of sole efficiency in one of the Persons in the Godhead, and a bare instrumental compliance in the other. The creation was the common effect of their joint acting: nor is it ever said, nor so much as hinted or implied, that the distinct Persons in the Godhead had different provinces, nor that one creature was made by one, and another creature was the workmanship of another. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are never represented as acting separately, but always in conjunction.
The sacred historian assures us, that, at the commencement of time, אלהימ Elohim, the triune God, caused matter to exist, which, previous to this astonishing display of his creating energy, had no being. Moses, as an inspired author, is the only one who could instruct us in the formation and unfolding of the world. He is not an Epicurus, who has recourse to atoms; a Lucretius, who believes matter to be eternal; a Spinoza, who admits a material God; a Descartes, who prates about the laws of motion; but a legislator, who announces to all men without hesitation, without fear of being mistaken, how the world was created. Nothing can be more simple, nor more sublime than his opening: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” He could not have spoken more assuredly, if he had been a spectator; and by these words, mythology, systems, and absurdities, shrink to nought, and are mere chimeras in the eyes of reason.[16]
Had Moses been a fictitious writer, how natural and how easy would it have been for him to have filled up the first part of his history with marvellous relations about the creation? With what pomp of language, with what waste of rhetoric, could he probably have embellished that surprising scene? With what a grand apparatus of celestial machinery might he have made the omnipotent Architect come forth to build a universe? How many sub-agents and subalterns would a fabulous poet or historian have employed in this stupendous and multifarious work? With what solemnity would every part have been gone about, and with how many episodes, digressions, and reflections, would the story have been filled, in order to give it an air of the marvellous? But read the beginning of Genesis, and observe how differently Moses writes. No scope is given to fancy or invention. All is narrated with an ease, plainness, and simplicity, which evidently shows that he kept close to truth, and laid down the facts just as they were presented to his mind; a manner of writing rarely, if at all, to be found in any other historians, but such as had the honor of being the amanuensis of the Spirit of truth.[17]