In Psalm 45 (44) :7-8, we find aThv throne, 0 God, is forever and ever. . . • Thy God, 0 God, hath anointed Abaft* Hebrews L 8-9 refers these words to the Christ as the natural Son of God, the first born of the Father and the object of adoration to the angels (Heb. i 6). Hence, the Christ is here twice called God; and his throne, or reign, is said to be from eternity.
In Psalm 109 (110) • 1. 'Jahweh said to Adonai:. Sit thou at my right hand.' This pas sage is cited by the Christ to prove that he is Adonai, seated at the right hand of Jahweh (Matt xxii, 44). But Adonai, °my Mas ter,* as a proper name, is used exclusively of the Deity, either alone or in such a phrase as Jahweh Adonai; indeed, in the stead of the in effable name, Jahweh, the pious Jew read Adonai. It is clear, then, that in this lyric, Jahweh addresses the Christ as a different Per son and yet identical in Godhead. Moreover, farther on Jahweh says to the Christ: 'Before the I begat thee' (verse 3). Hence the Christ of this psalm is the begotten of God, sharing the nature of his Father, different in personality; be is before the world comes into he sits at the right hand of the Father from all eternity.
The Sophia-Logos of the Sapiential Books.
In Proverbs, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus, the Christ appears as the untreated Sophia and Logos, the personified divine Wisdom and Word, a divine Person distinct from the first Person.
The Christ of the Early Prophets.— Isaiah who prophesied before the fall of Samaria (s.c. 722), will serve as a witness to the Chris tological ideas of the Prophets of the Assyrian period. All his invective and foreboding in re gard to the degeneracy and downfall of Israel are tempered by. a Messianic hope that ever and anon looms large over against a stormy horizon. What though Samaria be on the point of failing? Fear not the Assyrian hordes.
" Say to the fluttering of heart: Be brave, Fear notl with ce your God will come in quittance: Your God will come and save youl " (Is. xxxv. 4) Manifold and multiform is the dear prophecy of Isaiah that the nature of the Christ will be divine. ((Make ready the way of Jahweh' (xl, 3). Adonai Jahweh will come with might" (xl, 10). Saint Mark, witnessing to the Messianic 'expectation of his time, identifies Jahweh of this prophecy with the Christ (Mark i, 3). Not only Jahweh, but a new divine name is given by Isaiah to the Messiah: name will be called Immanuel' (Is. vii, 14). This prophecy is said by Saint
Matthew to be fulfilledin the divinity of Jesus the Christ: °They shall call his name Em manuel, which, being interpreted, is God with us' (Matt. i, 23). . Equally clear is the prophecy of the divinity of the Christ, when Isaiah says: child as born to us . . . his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Strong One, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace' (Is. ix, 6). The very same child, whose coming is to be the salvation of Israel, is called Immanuel (vii, 14) and God the Strong One (ix, 6). The former name explains the latter. The Christ will be with Israel more intimately than Jahweh Shechinah, 'Jahweh, He who tents with us.* By this more intimate presence and greater efficiency-of Immanuel, is the Christ to be God the Strong One.
Though more efficacious than Jahweh of the old Law, by his exercise of might in Israel, the Christ will be °the Sprout of Jahweh' (Is. iv, 2), the same in nature as the Father. °The Saviour sent by our God' (Is. lii, 10) will be °God our King' (Is. lii, 7),—yea, very God of very God, °Jahweh the God of Israel* (Is. lii, 12), °He that hath made thee, Jahweh of the hosts his name' (Is. liv, 5).
The Christ of the later Prophets.—Among the prophets of the Babylonian period, Jere miah stands out as a beacon of Messianic hope. While thundering against sin, before a.c. 586, he foretells the peace that is to be through the Christ, °Jahweh our Just One' (xxiii, 6; xxxiii, 16). Malachi (a.c. 459-445) says: °Behold I send my angel, and he *shall prepare the way before my face, and presently the Lord, whom ye seek, and the angel of the testament, whom ye desire, shall come to his temple' (iii, 1). Tile Christ himself interprets °my angel' as his precursor, John the Baptist, who prepared the way before his public life (Matt. xi, 10). The Christ was, therefore, the spokesman of the words of Malachi. But the words of Malachi are uttered by Jahweh the great God of Israel. Hence, in this prophecy of Malachi, as else where in the prophets, the type merges into the antitype, the God of the Old Testament be comes the God of the New, Jahweh and the Christ are one and the same divine person.