We shall adduce a few plain passages declaratory of the divine nature of Jesus Christ, and then we shall consider the collateral evidence by which these declarations are confirmed.
It is admitted by all, that Jesus called himself, and allowed himself to be called the Son of God. " We believe, and are sure, says St. Peter, that thou art that Christ the Son of the living God." But it will naturally enough be inquired, what is implied in the title of the Son of God. Its full im port. no mortal can explain: but that our Lord meant it to imply his equality with God, is suffi ciently clear, if language has any meaning; and it is no less clear that both his disciples and his ene mies understood it in this sense. Thus when the Jews murmured because our Lord had healed a man on the Sabbath day, John v., he thus address ed them, " My father worketh hitherto and I work." Upon this we are told " the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the F.abbath, but said also that God was his father, making himself equal with God." Such was the meaning which the Jews attached to his assertion that God was his father. Is he at any pains to correct these impressions? Does he tell them that they had affixed a wrong meaning to his words Quite the reverse; for lie immediately addresses them in language more explicit than before; and confirms the inference which they had drawn re specting the high dignity which he had assumed. " As the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. For the Father judgeth no man, but hath commit ted all judgment to the Son, that all men should ho nour the Son even as they honour the father." Again, in the tenth chapter of John, our Lord says, "1 and my Father are one." The Jews con sidered this blasphemy, and immediately took up stories to stone him. Upon this he said to them, " Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him saying, for a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God." It would have been an easy matter for our Lord to have vindicated himself from the heavy charge of blasphemy, by disclaiming the inference which the Jews drew from his words; but instead of this, he only states additional •arguments to confirm them in the conclusion which they had formed, for he says, verse 37, I do not the works of my Fa ther, believe me not; but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works, that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him." The works to which he alludes were the miracles which he publicly performed. It is impossible to admit the reality of these miracles without admit ting at the same time his pretensions to a divine character in their full extent; and the reality of these miracles was never doubted by those who had the best opportunities of judging. The Jews and
all the first adversaries of Christianity never at tempt to deny them; on the contrary, they endea vour to account for them on the supposition that they were wrought by magic, or by the power of the devil, a mode of explanation which a modern infidel would be ashamed to adopt.t Admitting, then, that our Lord actually perform ed these wonderful works, we must likewise admit that they afford complete confirmation of his ex traordinary pretensions. For he must have per formed them either by a power inherent in himself, or derived from God. If he possessed power in himself, his divine character is, by that very cir cumstance, completely established; for God alone is possessed of proper and inherent power; or if he derived his power from God, in that case the Fa ther is bearing attestation to the doctrines of his Son, and declaring that his pretensions to a divine character, and to divine honours, are well founded; for the Almighty would never lend his power to establish a falsehood, or to countenance pretensions which interfered with his own glory.
It is impossible for any one who reads the gos pels with attention, to entertain the smallest doubt that Jesus Christ decidedly and unequivocally as serts his claim to a divine nature. It is true, in deed, that he very frequently calls himself the " Son of Man;" and we are taught, by the general strain of Scripture, to consider it as essential to his mediatorial character that he should assume the nature of man. " In all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertain ing to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people." Heb. ii. 17. But as has been well ob served,* there is a manifest peculiarity in the fre quency with which our Lord assumes the designa tion of the " Son of Man;" he was guarding against the error of denying his humanity, which was not long of creeping into the church; he therefore as sumes an appellation which none of the ordinary sons of men ever think of applying to themselves, because in their case it would be ridiculous to an nounce as a truth, what, in fact, is a truism, and never was denied by any human being. But there might have been room for doubting it in the case of our Lord, who exhibited such unequivocal proofs of divine power and omniscience. He therefore as sumes an appellation peculiarly honourable to our nature, and implying a truth essential to our com fort; and by the frequency with which he repeats it, he shows that he was more anxious to be con sidered man, than afraid of being denied to be God.