IN the United and Reformed Presbyterian Pulpit for September there is a discourse under the above title. We propose in this paper to review it, partly because the subject is, in a measure, new to many of our readers, but especially in order that we may warn them against some dangerous errors advanced in it. This is the more necessary, as many of our subscribers take the Monthly containing the sermon. To us the title presents an incongruity. Natural Christology must mean Christianity as taught in nature. That nature teaches some things, we know. 1 Cor. 11: 14. But that salvation by Christ is not among those things, the Scripture declares. 1 Cor. 2: 14. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." We know that the works of God give their testimony to precious revealed truth. Paul's application of part of the 19th Psalm, in Romans 10: 18, shows this. But this is far enough from nature revealing Christ. We give the author of the sermon the benefit of his own disclaimer. "I do not mean to assert that we can discover God's purpose, or the Final Cause in nature without much study; nor do I think we can discover it in many cases, unless some one teach us.' It is implied in these words, that we can, by much study, in some cases discover in nature the final cause of all things. On the following page this is modified in these words: "I do not mean that the atonement by Christ, and the salvation of sinners, could" (can) "be learned from the works of nature apart from divine revelation." This seems to us to be yielding the whole ground; for if nature cannot reveal Christ and his atonement, there can be no Natural Christology. To the question, What is the Final Cause? the answer given is— "Jesus Christ." We quote the author's words: "On this passage I remark, that it represents Jesus Christ as the First Cause, and the Final Cause, of all things." The passage referred to is the text of the discourse, Col. 1: 16-"All things were created by him and for him." The grammatical structure of the context points t dear Son," in verse 13, as the antecedent of the pronoun, hi text. It is "God's dear Son," literally the Son of his love, and for whom, all things were created. And while it is Jesus Christ is the Son of God, it is also true that Jesus Ch official title expressing a relation entirely distinct from th Sonship. And to predicate of him as Jesus Christ every thi predicable of him as the Son of God, would be a grave and d error. As the Son of God, he cannot die; as Jesus Christ down his life. Attention to this clear distinction would hay the necessity of an argument to prove that "for him" in th "for him as the God-man, Jesus Christ." It certainly is not ly in the text, and we add, it certainly is not there at all. T looseness of interpretation is manifest in the application of Rom to Christ. "Of him and through him and to him are all things reference is to the Lord in verse 34, "Who hath shown the mi Lord?" The ascription of glory in verse 36 is to the autho eternal decree, in verse 33. No one will say that this is Jesus This mistake as it regards the Final Cause runs through th discourse, and evidently misled and bewildered the mind of the He seems to have got a glimpse of the truth, when he says "t world was made for Christ, that through him God might mani graciousness, and so get glory to his great name." The last s states the truth. The glory of God is the final cause or en things. To this end all else is subordinate, whether in creation dence or redemption. That all things are made for the glory o is proved by Rev. 4:11, Prov. 16: 4, Is. 43: 7, Rom. 11: 36 this is the final cause of creation. All things were made for th of the Creator. Did Jesus Christ create all things? We use the name here official sense, and we answer the inquiry in the negative. Crea in no sense a mediatorial work. To reconcile parties supposes exist and to be at variance. Before the creation nothing exist God the Creator. It would be the height of absurdity to say th Creator sustained to man, in creating him, a relation that suppos to exist, and to have fallen. It would be to say that he existe did not exist at the same time. But this is clearly implied in th timent that we oppose. What does the Bible teach on this subject? Heb. 4: 10, "F that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own wor God did from his." It is generally agreed that "he that has e into his rest," is Christ, and that his works," from which h ceased, refer to his obedience and death. God, then, who has c from his works, is God as distinct from Christ-the triune God. resting from his works appears from verse 4, to be the cessation work of creation on the seventh day. The conclusion is inevi that it is God, as distinct from Christ, that rested, and consequently created all things. The ascription of glory for creation (Rev. 4: 11) is given to him When God, as Creator, is praised, the worshipers cast their crowns before the throne, and say, "Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.' When Christ conjointly with God is praised, they say, "Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb." These heavenly worshipers saw clearly the distinction between the Creator and the Mediator. That the work of creation is ascribed to the "Word," John 1: 2, and to the Son, Col. 1: 16, and Heb. 1: 2, proves nothing for the sentiment under consideration. All works ascribed to God, absolutely considered, are proper to each person of the Godhead. Creation is ascribed to the Spirit, Job 33: 4, and to the Word or Son, John 1: 3. What the Son does in his essential character, the Spirit can also be said to do; but not so in his mediatorial character. The Spirit cannot in any sense be said to be our Surety, or to have died for us. There are two texts that seem to favor the opposite opinion-Eph. 3:9,"Who created all things by Jesus Christ;" Heb. 1: 2, "By whom also he made the world." We were surprised at not finding these texts adduced by the author in support of his theory. They certainly might be used with more plausibility than those he has quoted. In the first, the term Jesus Christ is used in a distinctive, not in a descriptive sense. As Jesus Christ was not born when all things were created, we are to understand the person who became Jesus Christ by becoming man, to be meant. The same person is the Son, in the second passage, by whom God made all things. As in their essentially related state there is no superiority nor inferiority among the Divine persons, we are met by the inquiry, how one person could perform the act by another, how the Father could create by the Son? We answer this inquiry in the light of Gen. 1: 26 -" And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." All the acts of God ad extra, that is, all his acts that have not the divine persons themselves for their objects, are voluntary. They proceed from the will of God, not from his nature. There was no necessity arising from the nature of God to create. But it pleased him to make all things. We conceive that there was a dispensation in order to creation, analogous to the dispensation in order to redemption. And as in the latter case each person of the Godhead performs a specific work, we see no reason why the same arrangement might not have existed in regard to the former. According to this view, the Father originated the creation of the world, the Son made it by the Father's appointment, and the Spirit quickened and adorned it. This explanation of these passages, which is in entire accordance with the mode of divine operations ad extra, removes the apparent difficulty, in consistency with the position we maintain. The exigencies of the author's Natural Christology seem to impose on him the task of maintaining that. God made the world a place of disorder, pain and death; and right manfully he undertakes the task. We give his own words: "That the world before the fall was free from disorder, and death and pain, and spread out landscapes of loveliness and happiness like those of heaven, and that after the fall all 1 |