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Phil. ii. 9, 10.

self, reaches forth his hand after the good tidings of heavenly deliverance." It is truly refreshing, in the midst of so much unbelief, and misapprehension of the sense of Scripture, in the German commentators, to meet with such a clear and full testimony to the truth and efficacy of the Lord's great Sacrifice. And I am bound to say that the other great Germans recognize this just as fully), sat down on the right hand (literally, in the right hand,' viz., portion or side. The expression comes doubtless originally from Ps. cx. 1, cited below. Bleek, in the course of a long and thorough discussion of its meaning as applied to our Lord, shews that it is never used of his præ-existent coequality with the Father, but always with reference to His exaltation in his humanity after his course of suffering and triumph. It is ever connected, not with the idea of His equality with the Father and share in the majesty of the Godhead, but with His state of waiting, in the immediate presence of the Father, and thus highly exalted by Him, till the purposes of his mediatorial office are accomplished. This his lofty state is, however, not one of quiescence; for (Acts ii. 33) He shed down the gift of the Spirit, -and (Rom. viii. 34) He maketh intercession for us: and below (ch. viii. 1 ff.) He is, for all purposes belonging to that office, our High Priest in Heaven. This "sitting at the right hand of God" is described as lasting until all enemies shall have been subdued unto Him, i. e. until the end of this state of time, and his own second coming: after which, properly and strictly speaking, the state of exaltation described by these words shall come to an end, and that mysterious completion of the supreme glory of the Son of God shall take place, which St. Paul describes, 1 Cor. xv. 28) of Majesty (this word majesty is often found in the Septuagint, and principally as referring to the divine greatness) on high (in high places, i. e. in heaven. Compare Ps. xciii. 4, cxiii. 5; Isa. xxxii. 15, xxxiii. 5; Jer. xxv. 30. In the same sense we have "in the highest," Luke ii. 14; xix. 38; Job xvi. 20; Ecclus. xxvi. 16; Matt. xxi. 9; Mark xi. 10. Ebrard says: "HEAVEN, in Holy Scripture, signifies never unbounded space, nor omnipresence, but always either the starry firmament, or, more usually, that sphere of the created world of space and time, where the union of God with the

personal creature is not severed by sin,where no Death reigns, where the glorification of the body is not a mere hope of the future. Into that sphere has the Firstling of risen and glorified manhood entered, as into a place, with visible glorified Body, visibly to return again from thence." The omission of the article "the" here gives majesty and solemnity -its insertion would seem to hint at other majesties in the background), having become (distinct from " being," ver. 3: that, importing His essential, this, His superinduced state. For we are now, in the course of the enunciation,-which has advanced to the main subject of the argument, the proving of the superiority of the New Covenant,-treating of the post-incarnate majesty of the Son of God. He WAS all that has been detailed in ver. 3: He made purification of sins, and sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, and thus BECAME this which is now spoken of. This is denied by Chrysostom, but recognized by Theodoret, in a form however not strictly exact: for he applied it only to the Humanity of our Lord. To this Bleek very properly objects, that the making this exaltation belong only to Christ's human nature, and supposing Him to have while on earth possessed still the fulness of the majesty of his Godhead, is not according to the usage of our Writer, nor of the New Test. generally, and in fact induces something like a double personality in the Son of God. The Scriptures teach us that He who was with God before the creation, from love to men put on flesh, and took the form of a servant, not all the while having on Him the whole fulness of his divine nature and divine glory, but having really and actually emptied himself of this fulness and glory, so that there was not only a hiding, but an absolute inanition, a putting off, of it. Therefore His subsequent exaltation must be conceived of as belonging, not to his Humanity only, but to the entire undivided Person of Christ, now resuming the fulness and glory of the Godhead (John xvii. 5), and in addition to this having taken into the Godhead the Manhood, now glorified by his obedience, atonement, and victory. See Eph. i. 20-22; Phil. ii. 6— 9; Acts ii. 36; 1 Pet. iii. 21, 22. The Son of God before his Incarnation was Head over Creation: but after his work in the flesh he had become also Head of Creation,

m PSA. ii. 7. Acts xiii. 83. ch. v. 5.

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inasmuch as his glorified Body, in which He triumphs sitting at God's right hand, is itself created, and is the sum and the centre of creation) so much better than (the usual word of general and indefinite comparison in our Epistle, whether of Christian with Jewish [ch. vii. 19, 22; viii. 6; ix. 23], heavenly with earthly [x. 34; xi. 16; xii. 24], eternal with temporal [xi. 35]: see also vi. 9; vii. 7; xi. 40. It is used only three times by St. Paul, and never [unless 1 Cor. xii. 31, in the received text, be counted] in this sense: but thirteen times in this Epistle) the angels (of God; the heavenly created beings; afterwards, ver. 14, called "ministering spirits." All attempts to evade this plain meaning are futile; and proceed on ignorance of the argument of our Epistle, and of the Jewish theology. But why should the angels be here brought in? and why should the superiority of the Incarnate Son of God to them be so insisted on and elaborated? Bleek gives a very insufficient reason, when he says that the mention of God's throne brought to the Writer's mind the angels who are the attendants there. The reason, as Ebrard remarks, lies far deeper. The whole Old Test. dispensation is related to the New Test. dispensation, as the angels to the Son. In the former, mankind, and Israel also, stands separated from God by sin: and angels, divine messengers [as in the expression "the angel of the covenant"], stand as mediators between man and God. And of these there is, so to speak, a chain of two links: viz., Moses, and the angel of the Lord. The first link is a mere man, who is raised above his fellow-men by his calling, by his office, the commission given to him, and brought nearer to God; but he is a sinner as they are, and is in reality no more a partaker of the divine nature than they are. The second link is the angelic form in which God revealed Himself to his people, coming down to their capacity, like to man, without being man. So that Godhead and Manhood approximated to one another: a man was commissioned and enabled to hear God's words: God appeared in a form in which men might see Him: but the two found no point of contact; no real union of the Godhead and the Manhood took place. Where as in the Son, God and the Manhood not only approximated, but became personally

one.

God no longer accommodates Himself to the capacities of men in an angelophany or theophany, but has revealed the fulness of His divine nature in the man Jesus,-in that He, who was the brightness of his glory, became man. The argument of the Writer necessarily then leads him to shew how both Mediators, the angel of the Old Test. covenant, and Moses, found their higher unity in Christ. First, he shews this of the angel or angels [for it was not always one individual angelic being, but various] by whom the first covenant was given: then of Moses, ch. iii. iv. This first portion is divided into two: vv. 4—14, in which he shews that the Son, as the eternal Son of God, is higher than the angels [see the connexion of this with the main argument below]: then, after an exhortation [ii. 1-4] founded on this, tending also to impress on us the superior holiness of the New Test. revelation, the second part [ii. 5-18] in which he shews that in the Son, the manhood also is exalted above the angels), in proportion as he hath inherited (as his own: the word being perhaps chosen in reference to the Old Test. prophecies, which promised it to Him: see below. The perfect is important, as denoting something belonging to His present and abiding state, not an event wholly past, as "sat down" above, indicating the first "setting himself down," though that word might also be used of a permanent state of session) a more distinguished (or, more excellent) name (to be taken in its proper sense, not understood to mean precedence or dignity; as ver. 5 shews: whence also we get an easy answer to the enquiry, what name is intended: viz. that of Son, in the peculiar and individual sense of the citation there. The angels themselves are called “sons of God," Job i. 6; ii. 1; xxxviii. 7: Dan. iii. 25, and Gen. vi. 2 [see Jude 6 note, and Introd. to Jude, § v. 11]: but the argument here is that the title "SON OF GOD" is bestowed on him individually, in a sense in which it never was conferred upon an angel. See as a parallel, Phil. ii. 9 ff. It must be remembered, as Delitzsch beautifully remarks, that the fulness of glory of the peculiar name of the Son of God is unattainable by human speech or thought: it is, Rev. xix. 12, “a name which none knoweth but Himself." And all the citations and appellations here are but

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fragmentary indications of portions of its glory are but beams of light, which are united in it as in a central sun. Since when has Christ in this sense inherited this name? The answer must not be hastily made, as by some Commentators, that the term inherited implies the glorification of the humanity of Christ to that Sonship which He before had in virtue of his Deity. Evidently so partial a reference cannot be considered as exhausting the sense of the Writer. Nor again can we say that it was at the time of His incarnation, though the words of the angel in Luke i. 35, "That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God," seem to favour such a reference: for it was especially at His incarnation, that He was made a little lower than the angels, ch. ii. 9. Rather would the sense seem to be, that the especial name of SON, belonging to Him not by ascription nor adoption, but by His very Being itself, has been ever, and is now, His: inherited by Him, "in that he is the very Son of God," as Chrysostom says: the Old Test. declarations being as it were portions of the instrument by which this inheritance is assured to Him, and by the citation of which it is proved. Observe that the having become better than the angels is not identical with the inheriting, but in proportion to it: the triumphant issue of his Mediation is consonant to the glorious Name, which is His by inheritance: but which, in the fulness of its present inconceivable glory [see above], has been put on and taken up by Him in the historical process of his mediatorial humiliation and triumph) than they. 5-13.] Proof from Scripture of this last declaration. 5.] For (substantiation of His having inherited a more exalted name than the angels) to whom of (among) the angels did He (God, the subject of vv. 1, 2; as the subsequent citation shews) ever say (this citation from Ps. ii., has brought up in recent German Commentators the whole question of the original reference of that Psalm, and of Old Test. citations in the New Test. altogether. These discussions will be found in Bleek, De Wette, and Ebrard. The latter is by far the deepest and most satisfactory: seeing, as he does, the furthest into the truth of the peculiar standing of the Hebrew people, and the

1 CHRON. xxii. 10. & xxviii. 6. Ps. lxxxix. 20, 27.

Messianic import of the theocracy. Those who entirely or partially deny this latter, seem to me to be without adequate means of discussing the question. Ebrard's view is, that the Psalm belongs to the reign of David. The objection that ver. 6 will not apply to David's anointing, inasmuch as that took place at Bethlehem in his boyhood, he answers, by regarding that anointing as connected with his establishment on Mount Zion, not as having locally taken place there, but as the first of that series of divine mercies of which that other was the completion. He further ascribes the Psalm to that portion of David's reign when (2 Sam. viii.) Hadadezer, and many neighbouring nations, were smitten by him which victories he looked on as the fulfilment to him of Nathan's prophecy, 2 Sam. vii. 8-17. In that prophecy the offspring of David is mentioned in the very words quoted below in this verse, and in terms which, he contends, will not apply to Solomon, but must be referred to the great promised Seed of David. He regards this triumphant occasion as having been treated by the royal Psalmist as a type and foretaste of the ultimate ideal dominion of the "Son of David" over the kings of the earth), Thou (the seed of David, anointed in God's counsels as king on his holy hill of Sion: see above) art my Son (according to the promise presently to be quoted, finding its partial fulfilment in Solomon, but its only entire one in the Son of David who is also the Son of God), I (emphatic: "I and no other:" expressed also in the Hebrew) this day have begotten thee (first, what are we to understand by this term, have begotten? Bleek says, "As Sonship, in the proper sense, is dependent on the act of begetting, so may, especially by the Hebrews, to beget' be figuratively used to express the idea of making any one a son,' in which derived and figurative reference this also may be meant. And we get an additional confirmation of this meaning from Jer. ii. 27, where it is said of the foolish idolatrous Israelites, They say to a stock, Thou art my father, and to a stone, Thou hast begotten me' (so the Septuagint). Accordingly, the meaning here is, I have made Thee my Son' [so Ps. lxxxix. 20, 26, 27: I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him: He shall cry unto

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....

me, Thou art my Father . . . . Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth']:-namely, by setting Thee on the throne of my people: and the term this day will most naturally be referred to the time of the anointing of the King on Zion, as the act whereby he was manifested as Son of God in this sense." And so Calvin. The above remarks seem pertinent and unobjectionable, as long as we regard them as explaining the supposed immediate reference to David and present circumstances: but it is plain that, according to the above view of Ps. ii., and indeed to the usage of the New Test., in applying this passage to our Lord, we want another and a higher sense in which both the words, I have begotten, and this day, may be applicable to Him: a sense in which I should be disposed to say that the words must in their fulness of meaning be taken, to the neglect and almost the obliteration of that their supposed lower refer

ence.

For, granting the application of such sayings to our Lord, then must the terms of them, suggested by the Holy Spirit of prophecy, which is His testimony, bear adequate interpretations as regards His person and office. It has not therefore been without reason that the Fathers, and so many modern divines, have found in this term I have begotten the doctrine of the generation of the Son of God, and have endeavoured, in accordance with such reference, to assign a fitting sense to this day. As the subject is exceedingly important, and has been generally passed over slightly by our English expositors, I shall need no apology for gathering from Bleek and Suicer the opinions and testimonies concerning it. 1) One view refers this day to the eternal generation of the Son, and regards it as an expression of the everlasting present of eternity. Thus Origen very grandly says, "This is said to Him by God, with whom 'to-day' ever is present: for with God, as I think, is no evening, because neither is there morning, but the time which reaches, so to speak, over His unbegotten and eternal life, is an everlasting to-day,' in which the Son is begotten: no beginning of His being begotten being found, as neither of this 'to-day.' And so Athanasius, Augustine, and other Fathers and moderns. 2) A second, to the generation, in time, of the

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a Son?

And again, when he

Incarnate Son of Man, when Jesus assumed the divine nature on the side of his Manhood also: so Chrysostom, Theodoret, Eusebius, Cyril Alex., and others. 3) A third, to the period when Jesus was manifested to men as the Son of God, i. e. by most, to the time of the Resurrection, with reference to Acts xiii. 33, where St. Paul alleges this citation as thus applying [so, recently, Delitzsch]: by some, to that of the Ascension, when He was set at the right hand of God and entered on His heavenly High Priesthood [ch. v. 5]: so Hilary, Ambrose, Calvin, Grotius, and the Socinians. Owen also takes the same view ["the eternal generation of Christ, on which His filiation or sonship, both name and thing, doth depend, is to be taken only declaratively, and that declaration to be made in His resurrection, and exaltation over all, that ensued thereon"]. Of these interpretations, I agree with Bleek that the first is that which best agrees with the context. The former verses represent to us the Son of God as standing in this relation to the Father before the worlds and ver. 6, which plainly forms a contrast to this ver. 5 as to time, treats distinctly of the period of the Incarnation. It is natural then to suppose that this verse is to be referred to a time prior to that event)? And again (how is the ellipsis here to be supplied? Probably, and [to whom of the angels ever said He] again: or perhaps, again [see below on ver. 6] merely serves to introduce a fresh citation), I will be to Him as (for) a father, and he shall be to me as (for) a son (the citation is from the Septuagint, as usual. It occurs in the prophecy of Nathan to David respecting David's offspring who should come after him. The import of it has been above considered, and its connexion with Ps. ii. shewn to be probable. The direct primary reference of the words to Solomon, 1 Chron. xxii. 7-10, does not in any way preclude the view which I have there taken of their finding their higher and only worthy fulfilment in the greater Son of David, who should build the only Temple in which God would really dwell)?

6.] But (because a further proof, and a more decisive one as regards the angels, is about to be adduced) when He again (or, “when again He?"" Does again introduce a new citation, or does it belong to the

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And let all the angels of God worship him.

:

verb, and denote a new and second introduction? This latter view is taken by many, principally the ancient expositors, and lately by Tholuck, De Wette, Lünemann, and Delitzsch, — interpreting the 'second introduction' diversely some, as His incarnation, contrasted with His everlasting generation, or His creating of the world, which they treat as His first introduction: others, as His resurrection, contrasted with His incarnation: others, to His second coming, as contrasted with His first. The other view supposes a transposition of the adverb again, which in the original stands between when and the verb. I have shewn in my Gr. Test. that such a transposition is without examples. In this Epistle, when "again" is joined to a verb, it always has the sense of a second time?' e. g. ch. iv. 7; v. 12; vi. 1, 6. This being the case, I must agree with those who join again with hath introduced. And of the meanings which they assign to the phrase "bringing in again," I conceive the only allowable one to be, the second coming of our Lord to judgment. See more below) hath (shall have.' It appears from all usage that the present rendering, "bringeth in," is quite inadmissible) hath introduced (in what sense? See some of the interpretations above. But even those who hold the transposition of the word again are not agreed as to the introduction here referred to. Some hold one of the above-mentioned meanings, some another. I have discussed the meaning fully below, and gathered that the word can only refer to the great enter ing of the Messiah on His kingdom. At present, the usage of the verb here used must be considered. It is the accustomed word in the Pentateuch for the introducing' the children of Israel into the land of promise, the putting them into possession of their promised inheritance: see also Ps. lxxviii. 54. We have it again in Neh. i. 9, of the second introduction, or restoration of Israel to the promised land. The prophets again use it of the ultimate restoration of Israel: compare Isa. xiv. 2; lvi. 7; Jer. iii. 14; Ezek. xxxiv. 13; xxxvi. 24; xxxvii. 21; Zech. viii. 8. This fact, connected with the circumstances to be noted below, makes it probable that the word here also has this solemn sense of 'putting in possession of,' as of an in

Col. i. 18. Rev. i. 5. P DEUT. xxxii. 43, LXX.

1 Pet. iii. 22.

heritance. The sense ordinarily given, of bringing into the world,' the act of the Father corresponding to the "coming into the world" [ch. x. 5] of the Son, appears to be unexampled) the firstborn (only here is the Son of God so called absolutely. It is His title by præ-existence, "the firstborn of all creation," Col. i. 15 [where see the word itself discussed]:-by prophecy, Ps. lxxxix. 27, "I will make Him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth"-by birth, Luke ii. 7, see also Matt. i. 18-25-by victory over death, Col. i. 18; Rev. i. 5:-and here, where he is absolutely the Firstborn, it will be reasonable to regard all these references as being accumulated Him, who is the Firstborn,-of the universe, of the new manhood, of the risen dead. And thus the inducting Him in glory into His inheritance is clothed with even more solemnity. All angels, all men, are but the younger sons of God, compared to HIM, THE FIRSTBORN) into the world (not the same word as that so rendered, ch. x. 5: but signifying the inhabited carth:' and very frequently used by the Septuagint in prophetic passages, where the future judgments of God on mankind are spoken of. The usage would not indeed be decisive against referring the words to Christ's entrance into the human nature, but is much more naturally satisfied by the other interpretation), He (i.e. God, the subject of ver. 5) saith, And let all the angels of God worship Him (there are two places from which these words might come; and the comparison of the two will be very instructive as to the connexion and citation of prophecy. 1) The words themselves, including the and, which has no independent meaning here, come from Deut. xxxii. 43, where they conclude the dying song of Moses with a triumphant description of the victory of God over His enemies, and the avenging of His people. It will cause the intelligent student of Scripture no surprise to find such words cited directly of Christ, into whose hand all judgment is committed: however such Commentators as Stuart and De Wette may reject the idea of the citation being from thence, because no trace of a Messianic reference is there found. One would have imagined that the words "nor is