Part 14 (1/2)
The Confessions of the Waldenses were approved by Luther and the other Reformers. Luther published them in 1533, with a preface.
But the Creed called the Apostles', which the Waldenses in their first article adopt, expressly ascribes the work of creation to the Father: ”I believe in G.o.d the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord.” Probably this formula should not be dated so early as the first, or even the second century. The Creed called the Nicene, which was in 325 adopted by the Council of Nice in opposition to the Gnostics, the Judaizers, and the heresy of Arius, comprises various terms explanatory of the views then held concerning the Son, while it speaks of the Father as the maker of all things. ”We believe in one G.o.d, _the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible_. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of G.o.d, the only begotten: begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father. G.o.d of G.o.d; Light of Light; true G.o.d of true G.o.d; begotten, not made; consubstantial with the Father,” &c.
The Second General Council, which was held at Constantinople in 383, determined that the Nicene Creed should be the standard of orthodoxy.
This creed continued to be held by the Roman Catholic Church, and was adopted and still continues in use by the Protestant Episcopal Churches both of Great Britain and this country.
Probably the phraseology both of the Nicene and the Apostles' Creed, in respect to the ascription of the works of creation _to G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sumption 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 cla.s.s as to preclude the idea of any personal distinction in the G.o.dhead; 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 cla.s.s 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 G.o.dhead, equal with G.o.d. 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 wors.h.i.+p of the one Supreme Deity, and a.s.sociated 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, wors.h.i.+pped no G.o.d_; 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 wors.h.i.+pped the Christ as G.o.d, 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 pa.s.sed into the dark cloud of Popish superst.i.tion, ignorance, and imposture. The era of inspiration and miracles had pa.s.sed. 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 subst.i.tutes the Ma.s.s. 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 circ.u.mstances, unavoidably to change or modify the faith, in respect to some doctrines, of those who continued to be in the main evangelical. The circ.u.mstances referred to resulted from the nationalization of the Church, the a.s.sumption 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 wors.h.i.+p.
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 wors.h.i.+p, 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 ill.u.s.tration.
Now those controversies from the first with the Gnostics, the Cerinthians, Valentinians, Monarchians, Sabellians, Manichaeans, 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.
In this way, a departure in some things from the patriarchal, the early Jewish and the primitive Christian faith, is believed to have taken place; particularly in the omission to ascribe the works of creation and providence to the Christ, in his delegated personal character as Mediator, and ascribing those works to the Father; and in adopting the sentiments that the mediatorial work commenced after the fall, and had for its sole object the salvation of men, and that his second coming and reign would not be personal and visible, but only spiritual, at least not until the final judgment and consummation of all things.
The first of these errors--that of ascribing the creation to the Father personally, or to the invisible Deity, irrespective of any distinction of Persons in the G.o.dhead--is to be traced back in the line of the Jews to the period of the Babylonish exile, and to the influences and state of mind under which they renounced idolatry, and with it the entire doctrine of mediation, and all belief in a divine, atoning, and interceding Messiah; and, obscuring by their traditions and glosses, or wholly rejecting, those prophecies which relate to the first advent and sufferings of the Saviour, looked for a human deliverer and temporal chief, a king to resume the throne of David, in those predictions of the second advent which indicate a period of universal peace and happiness.
The Jews, previously to their exile, had both in respect to their knowledge of divine things and their practice, greatly degenerated. They had long been addicted to idolatry. They had rejected their Divine Protector and King, and yielded themselves to the false notions and corrupt practices of the heathen. The Divine presence and favor were withdrawn. They were afflicted and driven out of their country.
Prophets were sent to instruct, admonish, and encourage them; but they refused to hear, being hardened and blinded in unbelief. They regarded the G.o.d of Abraham, the Jehovah who led them out of Egypt, and, in the Shekina, presided over their nation, either as having become their enemy, or as having withdrawn from them for ever. Under these circ.u.mstances, there is ground to conclude that they willingly settled down in the notion of a Supreme Creator, invisible, far removed from the concerns of mortals, and indifferent or inattentive to them. On abandoning the forms of idolatry, and rejecting the pretended mediators of idolatrous wors.h.i.+p, while yet continuing impenitent, and maintaining a proud and haughty spirit as Jews, though now depressed, and apparently abandoned of G.o.d; they are believed to have banished from their minds all near apprehensions of the Divine Being, and all ideas of a Divine Mediator, and to have taken refuge in the abstract notion of a Supreme Creator, who, though no longer regarded as their covenant G.o.d and present protector, had promised a leader, a Messiah, who should deliver them from their temporal calamities.
Such is believed to have been their state of mind at the close of their exile; such the change attending their renunciation of idolatry; and that the error and defect in question, respecting the teachings of the Old Testament, had its source with them. Their sentiments and state of mind having been perpetuated down to the period of the Advent, were propagated afterwards in the manner above referred to.
There was, indeed, a partial, outward reformation under Nehemiah, after the return from Babylon, and the temple service was resumed; but the Shekina did not reappear, and there was no general or lasting change amongst the people. The Chaldee expositors, and afterwards the paraphrasts, labored to revive and perpetuate the lost meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures; but though a few, a remnant, of such as rightly apprehended and truly feared Jehovah were preserved and perpetuated, the theology and religion of the nation generally underwent no important change for the better.
The foregoing considerations may suffice to show how it has happened that the Old Testament has, both by Jews and Christians, so long and so generally been understood to ascribe the works of creation and providence, not to the Mediator, but to the Father, or to the Deity, irrespective of any personal or official distinctions.
That this error, and others intimately a.s.sociated with it, respecting the person and work of Christ, should have arisen and been perpetuated in the manner specified, cannot reasonably be regarded with surprise.
The nature of the case, and the lights of the intervening history, are at war with the supposition that the true doctrines upon these subjects, concerning which the governments, hierarchies, and people of the whole heathen world were in utter darkness and error, were preserved by the Jews after their return from Babylon, and after their rejection of Christ, and by the apostate hierarchy of the Romish system imbued with the spirit and degenerated to the level of Paganism, in all but the name. If, as is notorious, they did not truly teach the doctrines of Scripture upon other subjects, least of all can it be believed that they taught the truth concerning these.
NOTE. Concerning the Work of Creation and its completion at one Epoch.
It is clear from Colossians, chap. i., that the work of creation, there and elsewhere ascribed to the Christ, included the invisible as well as the visible worlds and all creatures; that they were called into existence by him and for him, for the purposes he was to execute and the ends which were to be accomplished by him. He is accordingly referred to as upholding and governing all things, as having all power in heaven and earth, as heir and Lord of all. Angels, princ.i.p.alities and powers are subject to him; and to him in his official character (as visibly manifested ”the Son of Man”) all judgment is committed.