p. 724 | THE DEITY OF CHRIST

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 1, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 46.

THE DEITY OF CHRIST.

THE divinity of Christ is a truth of revealed religion, and must be proved mainly from the word of God. It is in the Bible a good deal as the blood is in the body; cut into it at almost any point and it appears.

The only alternative is to believe the doctrine or reject the Bible. Reject the Bible, and where are you? Wandering cheerless and alone along the frigid shores of atheism, without God and without hope in the world.

Of course those who profess to believe the Bible and the Christian system, while denying the deity of Jesus Christ, can only do so by ingeniously explaining away the testimony of Scripture, and occupying an inconsistent and illogical position. No rational objections are of any force in such a case as this; for it is confessedly not a truth of the reason, but of the revealed will of God. Nor is there any contradiction of the human reason in the testimony of Scripture, however far, in some points, it may transcend our rational powers.

The perfect human nature of Jesus Christ is not now in dispute, but the divine nature in union with the human in Christ Jesus. The God man is the point in question. The direct proof of this doctrine, from the inspired word of God, is now in order. If Jesus Christ existed before he was born of the virgin, it settles the question that he was not a mere man, as modern Socinians and Unitarians hold.

The question of his pre-existence was settled by the testimony of Christ himself, when he said to the Jews, “Before Abraham was, I am.” John 8:58. In John 6:38 he says, “I came down from Heaven.” Of course, then, he existed there before he came down. In John 16:28 he says, “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world;” that is, he existed with the Father before his advent in the world. The apostle John teaches the same doctrine. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the word.” Now “the beginning” was not only before the human birth of Jesus, but before the creation. Gen. 1:1. And that by the Logos, or Word, John here means Jesus Christ, is settled by the fourteenth verse, in which he says, “The word was made flesh,” etc. Assuredly, therefore, the Bible teaches the pre-existence of Christ and settles it that he was not a mere man.

A man he undoubtedly was, but he was far more. And therefore, as might be expected, he claims divine honors for himself; and the Scriptures elsewhere render him the homage of divine worship. In John 5:23 he says “that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath sent him.” Paul writes (1 Cor. 1:2), “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, . . . with all that in every place call upon the name of [that is, invoke or worship] Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.” In Acts 7:59 we learn that “they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” In Heb. 1:6 the apostle says, referring to Ps. 97:7, “Let all the angels of God worship him,” viz., the Son, whom he had just before said was the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person. And Paul says (Phil. 2:10, 11), “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” It is the duty of Christians everywhere, therefore, to worship Christ as God.—Occident.