(a) Gen. 22:11, 16—“the angel of Jehovah called unto him [Abraham, when about to sacrifice Isaac] ... By myself have I sworn, saith Jehovah”; 31:11, 13—“the angel of God said unto me [Jacob] ... I am the God of Beth-el.” (b) Gen. 16:9, 13—“angel of Jehovah said unto her ... and she called the name of Jehovah that spake unto her, Thou art a God that seeth”; 48:15, 16—“the God who hath fed me ... the angel who hath redeemed me.” (c) Ex. 3:2, 4, 5—“the angel of Jehovah appeared unto him ... God called unto him out of the midst of the bush ... put off thy shoes from off thy feet”; Judges 13:20-22—“angel of Jehovah ascended.... Manoah and his wife ... fell on their faces ... Manoah said ... We shall surely die, because we have seen God.”

The “angel of the Lord” appears to be a human messenger in Haggai 1:13—“Haggai, Jehovah's messenger”; a created angel in Mat. 1:20—“an angel of the Lord [called Gabriel] appeared unto” Joseph; in Acts 3:26—“an angel of the Lord spake unto Philip”; and in 12:7—“an angel of the Lord stood by him”(Peter). But commonly, in the O.T., the “angel of Jehovah” is a theophany, a self-manifestation of God. The only distinction is that between Jehovah in himself and Jehovah in manifestation. The appearances of “the angel of Jehovah” seem to be preliminary manifestations of the divine Logos, as in Gen. 18:2, 13—“three men stood over against him [Abraham] ... And Jehovah said unto Abraham”; Dan. 3:25, 28—“the aspect of the fourth is like a son of the gods.... Blessed be the God ... who hath sent his angel.” The N.T. “angel of the Lord” does not permit, the O.T. “angel of the Lord” requires, worship (Rev. 22:8, 9—“See thou do it not”; cf. Ex. 3:5—“put off thy shoes”). As supporting this interpretation, see Hengstenberg, Christology, 1:107-123; J. Pye Smith, [pg 320]Scripture Testimony to the Messiah. As opposing it, see Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, 1:329, 378; Kurtz, History of Old Covenant, 1:181. On the whole subject, see Bib. Sac., 1879:593-615.

(a) Wisdom is represented as distinct from God, and as eternally existing with God; (b) the Word of God is distinguished from God, as executor of his will from everlasting.

(a) Prov. 8:1—“Doth not wisdom cry?” Cf. Mat. 11:19—“wisdom is justified by her works”; Luke 7:35—“wisdom is justified of all her children”; 11:49—“Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send unto them prophets and apostles”; Prov. 8:22, 30, 31—“Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way, Before his works of old.... I was by him, as a master workman: And I was daily his delight.... And my delight was with the sons of men”; cf. 3:19—“Jehovah by wisdom founded the earth,” and Heb. 1:2—“his Son ... through whom ... he made the worlds.” (b) Ps. 107:20—“He sendeth his word, and healeth them”; 119:89—“For ever, O Jehovah, Thy word is settled in heaven”; 147:15-18—“He sendeth out his commandment.... He sendeth out his word.”

In the Apocryphal book entitled Wisdom, 7:26, 28, wisdom is described as “the brightness of the eternal light,” “the unspotted mirror of God's majesty,” and “the image of his goodness”—reminding us of Heb. 1:3—“the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance.” In Wisdom, 9:9, 10, wisdom is represented as being present with God when he made the world, and the author of the book prays that wisdom may be sent to him out of God's holy heavens and from the throne of his glory. In 1 Esdras 4:35-38, Truth in a similar way is spoken of as personal: “Great is the Truth and stronger than all things. All the earth calleth upon the Truth, and the heaven blesseth it; all works shake and tremble at it, and with it is no unrighteous thing. As for the Truth, it endureth and is always strong; it liveth and conquereth forevermore.”

Dorner, in his History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, 1:13-45, and in his System of Doctrine, 1:348, 349, gives the best account of Philo's doctrine of the Logos. He says that Philo calls the Logos ??????e???, ????e?e??, de?te??? ?e??. Whether this is anything more than personification is doubtful, for Philo also calls the Logos the ??s?? ???t??. Certainly, so far as he makes the Logos a distinct personality, he makes him also a subordinate being. It is charged that the doctrine of the Trinity owes its origin to the Platonic philosophy in its Alexandrian union with Jewish theology. But Platonism had no Trinity. The truth is that by the doctrine of the Trinity Christianity secured itself against false heathen ideas of God's multiplicity and immanence, as well as against false Jewish ideas of God's unity and transcendence. It owes nothing to foreign sources.

We need not assign to John's gospel a later origin, in order to account for its doctrine of the Logos, any more than we need to assign a later origin to the Synoptics in order to account for their doctrine of a suffering Messiah. Both doctrines were equally unknown to Philo. Philo's Logos does not and cannot become man. So says Dorner. Westcott, in Bible Commentary on John, Introd., xv-xviii, and on John 1:1—“The theological use of the term [in John's gospel] appears to be derived directly from the Palestinian Memra, and not from the Alexandrian Logos.” Instead of Philo's doctrine being a stepping-stone from Judaism to Christianity, it was a stumbling-stone. It had [pg 321]no doctrine of the Messiah or of the atonement. Bennett and Adeny, Bib. Introd., 340—“The difference between Philo and John may be stated thus: Philo's Logos is Reason, while John's is Word; Philo's is impersonal, while John's is personal; Philo's is not incarnate, while John's is incarnate; Philo's is not the Messiah, while John's is the Messiah.”

Philo lived from B. C. 10 or 20 to certainly A. D. 40, when he went at the head of a Jewish embassy to Rome, to persuade the Emperor to abstain from claiming divine honor from the Jews. In his De Opifice Mundi he says: “The Word is nothing else but the intelligible world.” He calls the Word the “chainband,” “pilot,” “steersman,” of all things. Gore, Incarnation, 69—“Logos in Philo must be translated ‘Reason.’But in the Targums, or early Jewish paraphrases of the O. T., the ‘Word’ of Jehovah (Memra, Devra) is constantly spoken of as the efficient instrument of the divine action, in cases where the O. T. speaks of Jehovah himself, ‘The Word of God’ had come to be used personally, as almost equivalent to God manifesting himself, or God in action.” George H. Gilbert, in Biblical World, Jan. 1899:44—“John's use of the term Logos was suggested by Greek philosophy, while at the same time the content of the word is Jewish.”

Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 174-208—“The Stoics invested the Logos with personality. They were Monists and they made ????? and ??? the active and the passive forms of the one principle. Some made God a mode of matter—natura naturata; others made matter a mode of God—natura naturans = the world a self-evolution of God. The Platonic forms, as manifold expressions of a single ?????, were expressed by a singular term, Logos, rather than the Logoi, of God. From this Logos proceed all forms of mind or reason. So held Philo: ‘The mind is an offshoot from the divine and happy soul (of God), an offshoot not separated from him, for nothing divine is cut off and disjoined, but only extended.’ Philo's Logos is not only form but force—God's creative energy—the eldest-born of the ‘I am,’ which robes itself with the world as with a vesture, the high priest's robe, embroidered with all the forces of the seen and unseen worlds.”

Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 1:53—“Philo carries the transcendence of God to its logical conclusions. The Jewish doctrine of angels is expanded in his doctrine of the Logos. The Alexandrian philosophers afterwards represented Christianity as a spiritualized Judaism. But a philosophical system dominated by the idea of the divine transcendence never could have furnished a motive for missionary labors like those of Paul. Philo's belief in transcendence abated his redemptive hopes. But, conversely, the redemptive hopes of orthodox Judaism saved it from some of the errors of exclusive transcendence.” See a quotation from Siegfried, in SchÜrer's History of the Jewish People, article on Philo: “Philo's doctrine grew out of God's distinction and distance from the world. It was dualistic. Hence the need of mediating principles, some being less than God and more than creature. The cosmical significance of Christ bridged the gulf between Christianity and contemporary Greek thought. Christianity stands for a God who is revealed. But a Logos-doctrine like that of Philo may reveal less than it conceals. Instead of God incarnate for our salvation, we may have merely a mediating principle between God and the world, as in Arianism.”

The preceding statement is furnished in substance by Prof. William Adams Brown. With it we agree, adding only the remark that the Alexandrian philosophy gave to Christianity, not the substance of its doctrine, but only the terminology for its expression. The truth which Philo groped after, the Apostle John seized and published, as only he could, who had heard, seen, and handled “the Word of life” (1 John 1:1). “The Christian doctrine of the Logos was perhaps before anything else an effort to express how Jesus Christ was God (Te??), and yet in another sense was not God (? ?e??); that is to say, was not the whole Godhead” (quoted in Marcus Dods, Expositors' Bible, on John 1:1). See also Kendrick, in Christian Review, 26:369-399; Gloag, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., 1891:45-57; RÉville, Doctrine of the Logos in John and Philo; Godet on John, Germ. transl., 13, 135; Cudworth, Intellectual System, 2:320-333; PressensÉ, Life of Jesus Christ, 83; Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 1:114-117; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 59-71; Conant on Proverbs, 53.

(a) John 16:14—“He (??e????) shall glorify me”; in Eph. 1:14 also, some of the best authorities, including Tischendorf (8th ed.), read ??, the masculine pronoun: “who is an earnest of our inheritance.” But in John 14:16-18, pa?????t?? is followed by the neuters ? and a?t?, because p?e?a had intervened. Grammatical and not theological considerations controlled the writer. See G. B. Stevens, Johannine Theology, 189-217, especially on the distinction between Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is another person than Christ, in spite of Christ's saying of the coming of the Holy Spirit: “I come unto you.” (b) John 16:7—“if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you.” The word pa?????t??, as appears from 1 John 2:1, quoted above, is a term of broader meaning than merely “Comforter.” The Holy Spirit is, indeed, as has been said, “the mother-principle in the Godhead,” and “as one whom his mother comforteth” so God by his Spirit comforts his children (Is. 66:13). But the Holy Spirit is also an Advocate of God's claims in the soul, and of the soul's interests in prayer (Rom. 8:26—“maketh intercession for us”). He comforts not only by being our advocate, but by being our instructor, patron, and guide; and all these ideas are found attaching to the word pa?????t?? in good Greek usage. The word indeed is a verbal adjective, signifying “called to one's aid,” hence a “helper”; the idea of encouragement is included in it, as well as those of comfort and of advocacy. See Westcott, Bible Com., on John 14:16; Cremer, Lexicon of N. T. Greek, in voce.

T. Dwight, in S. S. Times, on John 14:16—“The fundamental meaning of the word pa?????t??, which is a verbal adjective, is ‘called to one's aid,’ and thus, when used as a noun, it conveys the idea of ‘helper.’ This more general sense probably attaches to its use in John's Gospel, while in the Epistle (1 John 2:1, 2) it conveys the idea of Jesus acting as advocate on our behalf before God as a Judge.” So the Latin advocatus signifies one “called to”—i. e., called in to aid, counsel, plead. In this connection Jesus says: “I will not leave you orphans” (John 14:18). Cumming, Through the Eternal Spirit, 228—“As the orphaned family, in the day of the parent's death, need some friend who shall lighten their sense of loss by his own presence with them, so the Holy Spirit is ‘called in’to supply the present love and help which the Twelve are losing in the death of Jesus.”A. A. Hodge, Pop. Lectures, 237—“The Roman ‘client,’ the poor and dependent man, called in his ‘patron’ to help him in all his needs. The patron thought for, advised, directed, supported, defended, supplied, restored, comforted his client in all his complications. The client, though weak, with a powerful patron, was socially and politically secure forever.”

Neither of these names designates the Monad as such. Each designates rather that personal distinction which forms the eternal basis and ground for a particular self-revelation. In the sense of being the Author and Provider of men's natural life, God is the Father of all. But even this natural sonship is mediated by Jesus Christ; see 1 Cor. 8:6—“one Lord, Jesus Christ through whom are all things, and we through him.” The phrase “Our Father,”however, can be used with the highest truth only by the regenerate, who have been newly born of God by being united to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. See Gal. 3:26—“For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Jesus Christ”; 4:4-6—“God sent forth his Son ... that we might receive the adoption of sons ... sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father”; Eph. 1:5—“foreordained as unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.” God's love for Christ is the measure of his love for those who are one with Christ. Human nature in Christ is lifted up into the life and communion of the eternal Trinity. Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:306-310.

Human fatherhood is a reflection of the divine, not, vice versa, the divine a reflection of the human; cf. Eph. 3:14, 15—“the Father, from whom every fatherhood pat??? in heaven and on earth is named.” Chadwick, Unitarianism, 77-83, makes the name “Father” only a symbol for the great Cause of organic evolution, the Author of all being. But we may reply with Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 177—“to know God outside of the sphere of redemption is not to know him in the deeper meaning of the term ‘Father’. It is only through the Son that we know the Father: Mat. 11:27—‘Neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him.’”

Whiton, Gloria Patri, 38—“The Unseen can be known only by the seen which comes forth from it. The all-generating or Paternal Life which is hidden from us can be known only by the generated or Filial Life in which it reveals itself. The goodness and righteousness which inhabits eternity can be known only by the goodness and righteousness which issues from it in the successive births of time. God above the world is made known only by God in the world. God transcendent, the Father, is revealed by God immanent, the Son.” Faber: “O marvellous, O worshipful! No song or sound is heard, But everywhere and every hour, In love, in wisdom and in power, [pg 335]the Father speaks his dear eternal Word.” We may interpret this as meaning that self-expression is a necessity of nature to an infinite Mind. The Word is therefore eternal. Christ is the mirror from which are flashed upon us the rays of the hidden Luminary. So Principal Fairbairn says: “Theology must be on its historical side Christocentric, but on its doctrinal side Theocentric.”

Salmond, Expositor's Greek Testament, on Eph. 1:5—“By ‘adoption’ Paul does not mean the bestowal of the full privileges of the family on those who are sons by nature, but the acceptance into the family of those who are not sons originally and by right in the relation proper of those who are sons by birth. Hence ????es?a is never affirmed of Christ, for he alone is Son of God by nature. So Paul regards our sonship, not as lying in the natural relation in which men stand to God as his children, but as implying a new relation of grace, founded on a covenant relation of God and on the work of Christ (Gal. 4:5 sq.).”

Smyth, Introd. to Edwards' Observations on the Trinity: “The ontological relations of the persons of the Trinity are not a mere blank to human thought.” John 1:1—“In the beginning was the Word”—means more than “in the beginning was the x, or the zero.” Godet indeed says that Logos = “reason” only in philosophical writings, but never in the Scriptures. He calls this a Hegelian notion. But both Plato and Philo had made this signification a common one. On ????? as = reason + speech, see Lightfoot on Colossians, 143, 144. Meyer interprets it as “personal subsistence, the self-revelation of the divine essence, before all time immanent in God.” Neander, Planting and Training, 369—Logos = “the eternal Revealer of the divine essence.” Bushnell: “Mirror of creative imagination”; “form of God.”

Word = 1. Expression; 2. Definite expression; 3. Ordered expression; 4. Complete expression. We make thought definite by putting it into language. So God's wealth of ideas is in the Word formed into an ordered Kingdom, a true Cosmos; see Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 76. Max MÜller: “A word is simply a spoken thought made audible as sound. Take away from a word the sound, and what is left is simply the thought of [pg 336]it.” Whiton, Gloria Patri, 72, 73—“The Greek saw in the word the abiding thought behind the passing form. The Word was God and yet finite—finite only as to form, infinite as to what the form suggests or expresses. By Word some form must be meant, and any form is finite. The Word is the form taken by the infinite Intelligence which transcends all forms.” We regard this identification of the Word with the finite manifestation of the Word as contradicted by John 1:1, where the Word is represented as being with God before creation, and by Phil. 2:6, where the Word is represented as existing in the form of God before his self-limitation in human nature. Scripture requires us to believe in an objectification of God to himself in the person of the Word prior to any finite manifestation of God to men. Christ existed as the Word, and the Word was with God, before the Word was made flesh and before the world came into being; in other words, the Logos was the eternal principle of truth or self-consciousness in the nature of God.

Passages representing Christ as the Image of God are Col. 1:15—“who is the image of the invisible God”; 2 Cor. 4:4—“Christ, who is the image of God” (e????); Heb. 1:3—“the very image of his substance”(?a?a?t?? t?? ?p?st?se?? a?t??); here ?a?a?t?? means “impress,” “counterpart.” Christ is the perfect image of God, as men are not. He therefore has consciousness and will. He possesses all the attributes and powers of God. The word “Image” suggests the perfect equality with God which the title “Son” might at first seem to deny. The living Image of God which is equal to himself and is the object of his infinite love can be nothing less than personal. As the bachelor can never satisfy his longing for companionship by lining his room with mirrors which furnish only a lifeless reflection of himself, so God requires for his love a personal as well as an infinite object. The Image is not precisely the repetition of the original. The stamp from the seal is not precisely the reproduction of the seal. The letters on the seal run backwards and can be easily read only when the impression is before us. So Christ is the only interpretation and revelation of the hidden Godhead. As only in love do we come to know the depths of our own being, so it is only in the Son that “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

Christ is spoken of as the Effulgence of God in Heb. 1:3—“who being the effulgence of his glory”(?pa??asa t?? d????); cf. 2 Cor. 4:6—“shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Notice that the radiance of the sun is as old as the sun itself, and without it the sun would not be sun. So Christ is coËqual and coËternal with the Father. Ps. 84:11—“Jehovah God is a sun.” But we cannot see the sun except by the sunlight. Christ is the sunlight which streams forth from the Sun and which makes the Sun visible. If there be an eternal Sun, there must be also an eternal Sunlight, and Christ must be eternal. Westcott on Hebrews 1:3—“The use of the absolute timeless term ??, ‘being’, guards against the thought that the Lord's sonship was by adoption, and not by nature. ?pa??asa does not express personality, and ?a?a?t?? does not express coËssentiality. The two words are related exactly as ????s??? and ????e???, and like those must be combined to give the fulness of the truth. The truth expressed thus antithetically holds good absolutely.... In Christ the essence of God is made distinct; in Christ the revelation of God's character is seen.” On Edwards's view of the Trinity, together with his quotations from Ramsey's Philosophical Principles, from which he seems to have derived important suggestions, see Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 338-376; G. P. Fisher, Edwards's Essay on the Trinity, 110-116.

Here we see that God is Life, self-sufficient Life, Infinite Life, of which the life of the universe is but a faint reflection, a rill from the fountain, a drop from the ocean. Since Christ is the only Revealer, the only outgoing principle in the Godhead, it is he in whom the whole creation comes to be and holds together. He is the Life of nature: all natural beauty and grandeur, all forces molecular and molar, all laws of gravitation and evolution, are the work and manifestation of the omnipresent Christ. He is the Life of humanity: the intellectual and moral impulses of man, so far as they are normal and uplifting, are due to Christ; he is the principle of progress and improvement in history. He is the Life of the church: the one and only Redeemer and spiritual Head of the race is also its Teacher and Lord.

All objective revelation of God is the work of Christ. But all subjective manifestation of God is the work of the Holy Spirit. As Christ is the principle of outgoing, so the Holy Spirit is the principle of return to God. God would take up finite creatures into himself, would breath into them his breath, would teach them to launch their little boats upon the infinite current of his life. Our electric cars can go up hill at great speed so long as they grip the cable. Faith is the grip which connects us with the moving energy of God. “The universe is homeward bound,” because the Holy Spirit is ever turning objective revelation into subjective revelation, and is leading men consciously or unconsciously to appropriate the thought and love and purpose of Him in whom all things find their object and end; “for of him and through him, and unto him, are all things” (Rom. 11:36),—here there is allusion to the Father as the source, the Son as the medium, and the Spirit as the perfecting and completing agent, in God's operations. But all these external processes are only signs and finite reflections of a life-process internal to the nature of God.

Meyer on John 1:1—“the Word was with God”: “p??? t?? ?e?? does not = pa?? t? ?e?, but expresses the existence of the Logos in God in respect of intercourse. The moral essence of this essential fellowship is love, which excludes any merely modalistic conception.”Marcus Dods, Expositor's Greek Testament, in loco: “This preposition implies intercourse and therefore separate personality.”

Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 62—“And the Word was toward God” = his face is not outwards, as if he were merely revealing, or waiting to reveal, God to the creation. His face is turned inwards. His whole Person is directed toward God, motion corresponding to motion, thought to thought.... In him God stands revealed to himself. Contrast the attitude of fallen Adam, with his face averted from God. Godet, on John 1:1—“???? t?? ?e?? intimates not only personality but movement.... The tendency of the Logos ad extra rests upon an anterior and essential relation ad intra. To reveal God, one must know him; to project him outwardly, one must have plunged into his bosom.” Compare John 1:18—“the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father” (R. V.) where we find, not ?? t? ???p?, but e?? t?? ???p??. As ?? e?? t?? p???? means “went into the city and was there,” so the use of these prepositions indicates in the Godhead movement as well as rest. Dorner, System of Doctrine, 3:193, translates p??? by “hingewandt zu,”or “turned toward.” The preposition would then imply that the Revealer, who existed in the beginning, was ever over against God, in the life-process of the Trinity, as the perfect objectification of himself. “Das Aussichselbstsein kraft des Durchsichselbstsein mit dem FÜrsichselbstsein zusammenschliesst.” Dorner speaks of “das Aussensichoderineinemandernsein; Sichgeltendmachen des Ausgeschlossenen; Sichnichtsogesetzthaben; Stehenbleibenwollen.”

There is in all human intelligence a threefoldness which points toward a trinitarian life in God. We can distinguish a Wissen, a Bewusstsein, a Selbstbewusstein. In complete self-consciousness there are the three elements: 1. We are ourselves; 2. We form a picture of ourselves; 3. We recognize this picture as the picture of ourselves. The little child speaks of himself in the third person: “Baby did it.” The objective comes before the subject; “me” comes first, and “I” is a later development; “himself”still holds its place, rather than “heself.” But this duality belongs only to undeveloped intelligence; it is characteristic of the animal creation; we revert to it in our [pg 338]dreams; the insane are permanent victims of it; and since sin is moral insanity, the sinner has no hope until, like the prodigal, he “comes to himself” (Luke 15:17). The insane person is mente alienatus, and we call physicians for the insane by the name of alienists. Mere duality gives us only the notion of separation. Perfect self-consciousness whether in man or in God requires a third unifying element. And in God mediation between the “I” and the “Thou” must be the work of a Person also, and the Person who mediates between the two must be in all respects the equal of either, or he could not adequately interpret the one to the other; see Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 57-59.

Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:179-189, 276-283—“It is one of the effects of conviction by the Holy Spirit to convert consciousness into self-consciousness.... Conviction of sin is the consciousness of self as the guilty author of sin. Self-consciousness is trinal, while mere consciousness is dual.... One and the same human spirit subsists in two modes or distinctions—subject and object ... The three hypostatical consciousnesses in their combination and unity constitute the one consciousness of God ... as the three persons make one essence.”

Dorner considers the internal relations of the Trinity (System, 1:412 sq.) in three aspects: 1. Physical. God is causa sui. But effect that equals cause must itself be causative. Here would be duality, were it not for a third principle of unity. Trinitas dualitatem ad unitatem reducit. 2. Logical. Self-consciousness sets self over against self. Yet the thinker must not regard self as one of many, and call himself “he,” as children do; for the thinker would then be, not self-conscious, but mente alienatus, “beside himself.” He therefore “comes to himself” in a third, as the brute cannot. 3. Ethical. God—self-willing right. But right based on arbitrary will is not right. Right based on passive nature is not right either. Right as being—Father. Right as willing—Son. Without the latter principle of freedom, we have a dead ethic, a dead God, an enthroned necessity. The unity of necessity and freedom is found by God, as by the Christian, in the Holy Spirit. The Father—I; the Son—Me; the Spirit the unity of the two; see C. C. Everett, Essays, Theological and Literary, 32. There must be not only Sun and Sunlight, but an Eye to behold the Light. William James, in his Psychology, distinguishes the Me, the self as known, from the I, the self as knower.

But we need still further to distinguish a third principle, a subject-object, from both subject and object. The subject cannot recognize the object as one with itself except through a unifying principle which can be distinguished from both. We may therefore regard the Holy Spirit as the principle of self-consciousness in man as well as in God. As there was a natural union of Christ with humanity prior to his redeeming work, so there is a natural union of the Holy Spirit with all men prior to his regenerating work: Job 32:18—“there is a spirit in man, And the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding.”Kuyper, Work of the Holy Spirit, teaches that the Holy Spirit constitutes the principle of life in all living things, and animates all rational beings, as well as regenerates and sanctifies the elect of God. Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, 75, remarks on Job 34:14, 15—“If he gather unto himself his Spirit and his breath; all flesh shall perish together”—that the Spirit is not only necessary to man's salvation, but also to keep up even man's natural life.

Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1:172, speaks of the Son as the centrifugal, while the Holy Spirit is the centripetal movement of the Godhead. God apart from Christ is unrevealed (John 1:18—“No man hath seen God at any time”); Christ is the organ of external revelation (18—“the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”); the Holy Spirit is the organ of internal revelation (1 Cor. 2:10—“unto us Christ revealed them through the Spirit”). That the Holy Spirit is the principle of all movement towards God appears from Heb. 9:14—Christ “through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God”; Eph. 2:28—“access in one Spirit unto the Father”; Rom. 8:26—“the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity ... the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us”; John 4:24—“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit”; 16:8-11—“convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” See Twesten, Dogmatik, on the Trinity; also Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:111. Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 68—“It is the joy of the Son to receive, his gladness to welcome most those wishes of the Father which will cost most to himself. The Spirit also has his joy in making known,—in perfecting fellowship and keeping the eternal love alive by that incessant sounding of the deeps which makes the heart of the Father known to the Son, and the heart of the Son known to the Father.” We may add that the Holy Spirit is the organ of internal revelation even to the Father and to the Son.

Gen. 1:2—“The Spirit of God was brooding”; Luke 1:35—to Mary: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee”, John 3:8—“born of the Spirit”; Ps. 37:9, 14—“Come from the four winds, O breath.... I will put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live”; Rom. 8:11—“give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit.” 1 John 2:1—“an advocate(pa?????t??) with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”; John 14:16, 17—“another Comforter (pa?????t??), that he may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth”; Rom. 8:26—“the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us.” 2 Pet. 1:21—“men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit”; John 16:8—“convict the world in respect of sin”; 13—“when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth”; Rom. 8:14—“as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

McCosh: The works of the Spirit are Conviction, Conversion, Sanctification, Comfort. Donovan: The Spirit is the Spirit of conviction, enlightenment, quickening, in the sinner; and of revelation, remembrance, witness, sanctification, consolation, to the saint. The Spirit enlightens the sinner, as the flash of lightning lights the traveler stumbling on the edge of a precipice at night; enlightens the Christian, as the rising sun reveals a landscape which was all there before, but which was hidden from sight until the great luminary made it visible. “The morning light did not create The lovely prospect it revealed; It only showed the real state Of what the darkness had concealed.”Christ's advocacy before the throne is like that of legal counsel pleading in our stead; the Holy Spirit's advocacy in the heart is like the mother's teaching her child to pray for himself.

J. W. A. Stewart: “Without the work of the Holy Spirit redemption would have been impossible, as impossible as that fuel should warm without being lighted, or that bread should nourish without being eaten. Christ is God entering into human history, but without the Spirit Christianity would be only history. The Holy Spirit is God entering into human hearts. The Holy Spirit turns creed into life. Christ is the physician who leaves the remedy and then departs. The Holy Spirit is the nurse who applies and administers the remedy, and who remains with the patient until the cure is completed.” Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, 78—“It is in vain that the mirror exists in the room, if it is lying on its face; the sunbeams cannot reach it till its face is upturned to them. Heaven lies about thee not only in thine infancy but at all times. But it is not enough that a place is prepared for thee; thou must be prepared for the place. It is not enough that thy light has come; thou thyself must arise and shine. No outward shining can reveal, unless thou art thyself a reflector of its glory. The Spirit must set thee on thy feet, that thou mayest hear him that speaks to thee (Ez. 2:2).”

The Holy Spirit reveals not himself but Christ. John 16:14—“He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you.” So should the servants of the Spirit hide themselves while they make known Christ. E. H. Johnson, The Holy Spirit, 40—“Some years ago a large steam engine all of glass was exhibited about the country. When it was at work one would see the piston and the valves go; but no one could see what made them go. When steam is hot enough to be a continuous elastic vapor, it is invisible.”So we perceive the presence of the Holy Spirit, not by visions or voices, but by the effect he produces within us in the shape of new knowledge, new love, and new energy of our own powers. Denney, Studies in Theology, 161—“No man can bear witness to Christ and to himself at the same time. Esprit is fatal to unction; no man can give the impression that he himself is clever and also that Christ is mighty to save. The [pg 340]power of the Holy Spirit is felt only when the witness is unconscious of self, and when others remain unconscious of him.” Moule, Veni Creator, 8—“The Holy Spirit, as Tertullian says, is the vicar of Christ. The night before the Cross, the Holy Spirit was present to the mind of Christ as a person.”

Gore, in Lux Mundi, 318—“It was a point in the charge against Origen that his language seemed to involve an exclusion of the Holy Spirit from nature, and a limitation of his activity to the church. The whole of life is certainly his. And yet, because his special attribute is holiness, it is in rational natures, which alone are capable of holiness, that he exerts his special influence. A special inbreathing of the divine Spirit gave to man his proper being.” See Gen. 2:7—“Jehovah God ... breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”; John 3:8—“The Spirit breatheth where it will ... so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” E. H. Johnson, on The Offices of the Holy Spirit, in Bib. Sac., July, 1892:381-382—“Why is he specially called the Holy, when Father and Son are also holy, unless because he produces holiness, i. e., makes the holiness of God to be ours individually? Christ is the principle of collectivism, the Holy Spirit the principle of individualism. The Holy Spirit shows man the Christ in him. God above all = Father; God through all = Son; God in all = Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:6).”

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit has never yet been scientifically unfolded. No treatise on it has appeared comparable to Julius MÜller's Doctrine of Sin, or to I. A. Dorner's History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ. The progress of doctrine in the past has been marked by successive stages. Athanasius treated of the Trinity; Augustine of sin; Anselm of the atonement; Luther of justification; Wesley of regeneration; and each of these unfoldings of doctrine has been accompanied by religious awakening. We still wait for a complete discussion of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and believe that widespread revivals will follow the recognition of the omnipotent Agent in revivals. On the relations of the Holy Spirit to Christ, see Owen, in Works, 3:152-159; on the Holy Spirit's nature and work, see works by Faber, Smeaton, Tophel, G. Campbell Morgan, J. D. Robertson, Biederwolf; also C. E. Smith, The Baptism of Fire; J. D. Thompson, The Holy Comforter; Bushnell, Forgiveness and Law, last chapter; Bp. Andrews, Works, 3:107-400; James S. Candlish, Work of the Holy Spirit; Redford, Vox Dei; Andrew Murray, The Spirit of Christ; A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit; Kuyper, Work of the Holy Spirit; J. E. Cumming, Through the Eternal Spirit; Lechler, Lehre vom Heiligen Geiste; Arthur, Tongue of Fire; A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 250-258, and Christ in Creation, 297-313.

Psalm 2:7—“I will tell of the decree: Jehovah said unto me, Thou art my Son; This day I have begotten thee”see Alexander, Com. in loco; also Com. on Acts 13:33—“‘To-day’ refers to the date of the decree itself; but this, as a divine act, was eternal,—and so must be the Sonship which it affirms.” Philo says that “to-day” with God means “forever.” This begetting of which the Psalm speaks is not the resurrection, for while Paul in Acts 13:33 refers to this Psalm to establish the fact of Jesus' Sonship, he refers in Acts 13:34, 35 to another Psalm, the sixteenth, to establish the fact that this Son of God was to rise from the dead. Christ is shown to be Son of God by his incarnation (Heb. 1:5, 6—“when he again bringeth in the firstborn [pg 341]into the world he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him”), his baptism (Mat. 3:17—“This is my beloved Son”), his transfiguration (Mat. 17:5—“This is my beloved Son”), his resurrection (Acts 13:34, 35—“as concerning that he raised him up from the dead ... he saith also in another psalm, Thou wilt not give thy Holy One to see corruption”). Col. 1:15—“the firstborn of all creation”—p??t?t???? p?s?? ?t?se?? = “begotten first before all creation” (Julius MÜller, Proof-texts, 14); or “first-born before every creature, i. e., begotten, and that antecedently to everything that was created” (Ellicott, Com. in loco). “Herein” (says Luthardt, Compend. Dogmatik, 81, on Col. 1:15) “is indicated an antemundane origin from God—a relation internal to the divine nature.”Lightfoot, on Col. 1:15, says that in Rabbi Bechai God is called the “primogenitus mundi.”

On Rom. 1:4 (???s???t?? = “manifested to be the mighty Son of God”) see Lange's Com., notes by Schaff on pages 56 and 61. Bruce, Apologetics, 404—“The resurrection was the actual introduction of Christ into the full possession of divine Sonship so far as thereto belonged, not only the inner of a holy spiritual essence, but also the outer of an existence in power and heavenly glory.” Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 353, 354—“Calvin waves aside eternal generation as an ‘absurd fiction.’ But to maintain the deity of Christ merely on the ground that it is essential to his making an adequate atonement for sin, is to involve the rejection of his deity if ever the doctrine of atonement becomes obnoxious.... Such was the process by which, in the mind of the last century, the doctrine of the Trinity was undermined. Not to ground the distinctions of the divine essence by some immanent eternal necessity was to make easy the denial of what has been called the ontological Trinity, and then the rejection of the economical Trinity was not difficult or far away.”

If Westcott and Hort's reading ? ????e??? Te??, “the only begotten God,” in John 1:18, is correct, we have a new proof of Christ's eternal Sonship. Meyer explains ?a?t?? in Rom. 8:3—“God, sending his own Son,” as an allusion to the metaphysical Sonship. That this Sonship is unique, is plain from John 1:14, 18—“the only begotten from the Father ... the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the father”; Rom. 8:32—“his own Son”; Gal. 4:4—“sent forth his Son”; cf. Prov. 8:22-31—“When he marked out the foundations of the earth; Then I was by him as a master workman”; 30:4—“Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou knowest?” The eternal procession of the Spirit seems to be implied in John 15:26—“the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father”—see Westcott, Bib. Com., in loco; Heb. 9:14—“the eternal Spirit.” Westcott here says that pa?? (not ??) shows that the reference is to the temporal mission of the Holy Spirit, not to the eternal procession. At the same time he maintains that the temporal corresponds to the eternal.

The error of the Nicene Fathers was that of explaining Sonship as derivation of essence. The Father cannot impart his essence to the Son and yet retain it. The Father is fons trinitatis, not fons deitatis. See Shedd, Hist. Doct., 1:308-311, and Dogm. Theol., 1:287-299; per contra, see Bib. Sac., 41:698-760.

If there had been an eternal sun, it is evident that there must have been an eternal sunlight also. Yet an eternal sunlight must have evermore proceeded from the sun. [pg 342]When Cyril was asked whether the Son existed before generation, he answered: “The generation of the Son did not precede his existence, but he always existed, and that by generation.”

The sun is as dependent upon the sunlight as the sunlight is upon the sun; for without sunlight the sun is no true sun. So God the Father is as dependent upon God the Son, as God the Son is dependent upon God the Father; for without Son the Father would be no true Father. To say that aseity belongs only to the Father is logically Arianism and Subordinationism proper, for it implies a subordination of the essence of the Son to the Father. Essential subordination would be inconsistent with equality. See Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:115. Palmer, Theol. Definitions, 66, 67, says that Father = independent life; Son begotten = independent life voluntarily brought under limitations; Spirit = necessary consequence of existence of the other two.... The words and actions whereby we design to affect others are “begotten.” The atmosphere of unconscious influence is not “begotten,” but “proceeding.”

The subordination of the person of the Son to the person of the Father, or in other words an order of personality, office, and operation which permits the Father to be officially first, the Son second, and the Spirit third, is perfectly consistent with equality. Priority is not necessarily superiority. The possibility of an order, which yet involves no inequality, may be illustrated by the relation between man and woman. In office man is first and woman second, but woman's soul is worth as much as man's; see 1 Cor. 11:3—“the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man: and the head of Christ is God.” On John 14:28—“the Father is greater than I”—see Westcott, Bib. Com., in loco.

Edwards, Observations on the Trinity (edited by Smyth), 22—“In the Son the whole deity and glory of the Father is as it were repeated or duplicated. Everything in the Father is repeated or expressed again, and that fully, so that there is properly no inferiority.” Edwards, Essay on the Trinity (edited by Fisher), 110-116—“The Father is the Deity subsisting in the prime, unoriginated, and most absolute manner, or the Deity in its direct existence. The Son is the Deity generated by God's understanding, or having an Idea of himself and subsisting in that Idea. The Holy Ghost is the Deity subsisting in act, or the divine essence flowing out and breathed forth in God's infinite love to and delight in himself. And I believe the whole divine essence does truly and distinctly subsist both in the divine Idea and in the divine Love, and each of them are properly distinct persons.... We find no other attributes of which it is said in Scripture that they are God, or that God is they, but ????? and ???p?, the Reason and the Love of God, Light not being different from Reason.... Understanding may be predicated of this Love.... It is not a blind Love.... The Father has Wisdom or Reason by the Son's being in him.... Understanding is in the Holy Spirit, because the Son is in him.” Yet Dr. Edwards A. Park declared eternal generation to be “eternal nonsense,”and is thought to have hid Edwards's unpublished Essay on the Trinity for many years because it taught this doctrine.

The New Testament calls Christ ?e??, but not ? ?e??. We frankly recognize an eternal subordination of Christ to the Father, but we maintain at the same time that this subordination is a subordination of order, office, and operation, not a subordination of essence. “Non de essentia dicitur, sed de ministeriis.” E. G. Robinson: “An eternal generation is necessarily an eternal subordination and dependence. This seems to be fully admitted even by the most orthodox of the Anglican writers, such as Pearson and Hooker. Christ's subordination to the Father is merely official, not essential.”Whiton, Gloria Patri, 42, 96—“The early Trinitarians by eternal Sonship meant, first, that it is of the very nature of Deity to issue forth into visible expression. Thus [pg 343]next, that this outward expression of God is not something other than God, but God himself, in a self-expression as divine as the hidden Deity. Thus they answered Philip's cry, ‘show us the Father, and it sufficeth us’ (John 14:8), and thus they affirmed Jesus' declaration, they secured Paul's faith that God has never left himself without witness. They meant, ‘he that hath seen me hath seen the Father’ (John 14:9).... The Father is the Life transcendent, the divine Source, ‘above all’; the Son is the Life immanent, the divine Stream, ‘through all’; the Holy Spirit is the Life individualized, ‘in all’ (Eph. 4:6). The Holy Spirit has been called ‘the executive of the Godhead.’ ” Whiton is here speaking of the economic Trinity; but all this is even more true of the immanent Trinity. On the Eternal Sonship, see Weiss, Bib. Theol. N. T., 424, note; Treffrey, Eternal Sonship of our Lord; Princeton Essays, 1:30-56; Watson, Institutes, 1:530-577; Bib. Sac., 27:268. On the procession of the Spirit, see Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:300-304, and History of Doctrine, 1:387; Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1:347-350.

John Owen, Works, 3:64-92—“The office of the Holy Spirit is that of concluding, completing, perfecting. To the Father we assign opera naturÆ; to the Son, opera gratiÆ procuratÆ; to the Spirit, opera gratiÆ applicatÆ.” All God's revelations are through the Son or the Spirit, and the latter includes the former. Kuyper, Work of the Holy Spirit, designates the three offices respectively as those of Causation, Construction, Consummation; the Father brings forth, the Son arranges, the Spirit perfects. Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 365-373—“God is Life, Light, Love. As the Fathers regarded Reason both in God and man as the personal, omnipresent second Person of the Trinity, so Jonathan Edwards regarded Love both in God and in man as the personal, omnipresent third Person of the Trinity. Hence the Father is never said to love the Spirit as he is said to love the Son—for this love is the Spirit. The Father and the Son are said to love men, but the Holy Spirit is never said to love them, for love is the Holy Spirit. But why could not Edwards also hold that the Logos or divine Reason also dwelt in humanity, so that manhood was constituted in Christ and shared with him in the consubstantial image of the Father? Outward nature reflects God's light and has Christ in it,—why not universal humanity?”

Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 136, 202, speaks of “1. God, the Eternal, the Infinite, in his infinity, as himself; 2. God, as self-expressed within the nature and faculties of man—body, soul, and spirit—the consummation and interpretation and revelation of what true manhood means and is, in its very truth, in its relation to God; 3. God, as Spirit of Beauty and Holiness, which are himself present in things created, animate and inanimate, and constituting in them their divine response to God; constituting above all in created personalities the full reality of their personal response. Or again: 1. What a man is invisibly in himself; 2. his outward material projection or expression as body; and 3. the response which that which he is through his bodily utterance or operation makes to him, as the true echo or expression of himself.” Moberly seeks thus to find in man's nature an analogy to the inner processes of the divine.