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[For the Christian Examiner.]

ART. VI―Thoughts on the Personality of the Word of God.

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To do good and to get good should be the desire and the study of the living man, so long as God continues his mental faculties. At this period of life and with my infirmities it is but little that I can hope to do; but to do according to the ability which God giveth is all that he requires. He yet continues to me some portion of mental vigor, and a heart to delight in the study of his revealed will. Recently my thoughts have been employed on the supposed personality of "the Word"-"the Word of God." To write any thing like a thorough review of the subject would be more than I could reasonably hope to accomplish. I may, however, be enabled to record a selection of thoughts, which may be in some degree useful to myself, and to some portion of my fellow men. I will therefore hope in the mercy of God, and, with reliance on him, proceed to state some facts and thoughts relating to the subject, which shall appear to me both true and important. 1. I freely admit that Jesus, the Messiah, was properly a person, anointed of God,- one in whom the Father dwelt in a peculiar and intimate manner,and that he is the person of whom it is said, "his name is called the Word of God." Rev. xix. 13. Among the Jews it was a custom to give or assume significant names. The angel who appeared to Joseph, the reputed father of the Messiah, said to him, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus, - for he shall save his people from their sins." As Jesus signifies Saviour, it was properly given to him whom the "Father sent to be the Saviour of the world." As bread is food for the body, so the truths of the Gospel are food for the soul. As Jesus was the medium through which God was pleased to communicate this food to men, the Messiah in one of his figurative discourses said to his hearers, "I am the BREAD OF Life "the BREAD OF GOD which came down from heaven" "the LIVING BREAD." This was figurative language, and on the same principle he might be called the WORD OF GOD. When Jesus instituted the memorial of his death, he said "This cup is the new Covenant in my blood." No Christian perhaps doubts, that by the cup Jesus meant the wine which the cup contained; this was an emblem of his blood. The body or flesh of Christ was the Bread of life, in

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the same sense that the wine was called the cup. To give to a vessel the name of the thing which it contains is a common figure of speech.

2. What was written by John concerning the Word in the first chapter of his Gospel is supposed to have been the principal ground on which the hypothesis was formed, that by the Word is meant a second person in the Godhead. Had it not been for what John wrote, no such opinion perhaps would ever have been entertained. Cruden, the author of a celebrated "Concordance," was much disposed to favor this hypothesis; yet he has marked but six cases in which he thought the WORD meant a divine person. Four of these are in the first chapter of John's Gospel. One is found in 1 John v. 7,—the text, which at this day is supposed to be spurious. The other is Rev. xix. 13, were the Messiah has his name "called the Word of God," as significant of his office, or the errand on which he was sent into the world. When on trial, Jesus said to Pilate; "To this end was I born, for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." This he did during his ministry; and this testimony he sealed with his blood.

3. Some learned men have supposed, that John employed the term logos or Word, in a sense which he borrowed from Plato's philosophy; but who can admit this, that duly considers how often the term " Word," had been used in the Old Testament? Unless John meant to mislead his readers, it is reasonable to believe that he used the term in its Scriptural sense. In the Old Testament as well as in the New, the Word is sometimes personified, or spoken of as though a person was intended. It is said "the Word of the Lord came to one and another of the prophets," saying." Then we are told what the Word said to them. Yet in the New Testament the matter is thus explained-"Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 2 Pet. i. 21. Who can doubt that what Peter ascribes to the Holy Ghost is the same that was ascribed to the Word in the Old Testament. It is true, that in both forms of speech the agency of a real person is implied; and that person was Jehovah, the living Father. He came by his Word or spirit, and taught the prophets, what they should say or write. Had it been written Jehovah came to Jeremiah saying," and then by Peter, that "holy men of God wrote as they were moved by the Father," the meaning would, I believe, have been the same that was meant by the forms of speech adopted

in the Bible. It is supposed, that David sometimes wrote by inspiration. Among his last words are the following. "The spirit of God spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just." 2 Sam. xxiii. 2,3. Here, if I mistake not, we have four different forms of expressing nearly the same thing. What is said, spoken, or done, by "the spirit of the Lord," or "the Word," is spoken or done by "the God of Israel," and by "the Rock of Israel." What more does the whole amount to than this, that David spoke as he was taught by God, or by the spirit of God? Those who are fond of having a plurality of persons in the one God, may perhaps find four as clearly spoken of by David, as three are spoken of in any part of the Bible; "The spirit of the Lord, the Word, the God of Israel, — and the Rock of Israel." These four, it seems, united in teaching the same lesson "He that ruleth over men, must be just." May I then go forth and proclaim that the one God is four distinct persons?

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4. Is not the term Word, as well as the Spirit, of the neuter gender? are not its pronouns, it, its, it, not he, his, him, when they are grammatically given, except in a very few instances of personification? Had the rule of grammar now in view been duly observed in the common translation of the first chapter of John's Gospel, how very little there would have been of even the appearance, that, by the Word, was meant a person distinct from the God mentioned in the first verse. In translating the first four verses Dr. Campbell has observed the rule of grammar, which requires the pronoun to "agree with the noun in gender and number." The following is his translation: "In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God; and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made by it, and without it not a single creature was made. In it was life, and the life was the light of men."-So far is this translation from representing the Word as a person equal with the Father, that there is scarcely the shadow of personification.

In further speaking of the last clause of the first verse Dr. Campbell says:-"The old English translation, authorized by Henry VIII., following the arrangement used in the original, says 'God was the Word.'" Perhaps this more correctly expresses the meaning of John, than saying, "the Word was God." John probably meant, that God was manifested in or by his

word, that word by which he spoke the world of creation into existence.

5. In my opinion Dr. Campbell was correct in saying that in the first verse "there was a manifest allusion to the account given in the first chapter of Genesis, where we learn that 'In the beginning God made all things by his Word,' God said 'and it was so. But may I suppose that 66 a God said," or a word spoken by the Almighty, was a distinct person equal to himself? It is my opinion, that by what John said of the Word in this chapter, he meant to teach Christians, that the same Almighty power, by which God in the beginning spoke the natural light into existence, had been caused to dwell in Jesus as the Messiah, to establish his mission as divine, that he might be the spiritual light of the world, the light of men.

In other words, I think John meant to teach, that the same divine Power, Word, or Spirit, which gave existence to the first creation, had been displayed in the new creation, and that both were equally the works of God. The divine Word, or all-sufficiency of God, having been caused to dwell in Jesus as the Messiah, John proceeds to say; "We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father." Here we have the Word dwelling in the Messiah, in whom it pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell. The all-creating Word, the spirit not by measure, the fulness of the Godhead, and the Father dwelling in Christ, seem to me but different forms of expressing the same thing, each denoting the all-sufficiency which it pleased the Father should dwell in his Son. Nor have I the least doubt, that the Messiah was as allsufficient as he could have been by union with a second person of Deity equal to the Father. Christ said expressly "The Father who dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." If all fulness dwelt in the Father, and he dwelt in Christ, what more could be necessary either to the dignity or the sufficiency of the Messiah? What addition is made to either by the hypothesis, that Jesus was united to a second person equal with the Father? The hypothesis seems to me adapted to confuse the minds of men, and greatly to obscure the real glory of the Messiah.

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6. In the 4th verse of John's Gospel we thus read concerning the Word-"In it was life, and the life was the light of men.' While this Word dwelt in Christ he said, "I am the light of the world,"-"The words which I speak, they are spirit and they are life." It was by his words, by reveal

ing the truths of the gospel, that Jesus was the light of the world. By the all-creating word of his power God gave life to the various tribes of animals. So when he had caused this Word to tabernacle in the flesh, Jesus was enabled to give natural life to some who had been dead; and to give spiritual life to many who had been dead in trespasses and sins. By the indwelling of the Father, by his Spirit or Word, Jesus could say, "I am the resurrection and the life." The power of the divine Word was as really displayed when Jesus said, "Lazarus, come forth," as when "God said, Let there be light." In both cases the effects corresponded with the mandate, with the Almighty Word.

7. It may be proper to inquire whether the Scriptures do not afford further evidence, than has yet been brought to view, that John, in the first verse of his Gospel, alluded to the first chapter of Genesis in what he said of the Word, and not to any hypothesis of a plurality of persons in the Deity. In speaking of the scoffers who are to appear in the last days, Peter says; "For this they are willingly ignorant of, that by the Word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water, and in the water, whereby the world that then was, being overflowed, perished. But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same Word are reserved unto fire against the day of judgment, and the perdition of ungodly men." 2 Pet. iii. 5, 6, 7. "Through faith we understand that the worlds were made by the Word of God." Heb. xi. 3. "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." Ps. xxxiii. 6. In each of these passages there is probably an allusion to what is recorded in the first chapter of Genesis. To what other passage of the Scriptures could either of these writers have referred? They all, doubtless, had in view some well-known passage of scripture which related to the creation of the heavens and the earth; and I know not of any other which seems so probable as the account in Genesis. In the latter part of the verse quoted from the thirty-third Psalm, the "breath" of the Lord is the same as the spirit of the Lord; and is nearly the same as the "Word of the Lord" in the first part of the verse, as our words are the same as the breath by which they are formed. By the call of Christ,-"Lazarus, come forth," life was given to a corpse which had been dead four days. Suppose that in another account of this event we should read that the VOL. XXI. VOL. III. 12 NO. I.

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