Chapter IX. Christ, Though Known To The Jews Under The Law, Yet Clearly Revealed Only In The Gospel.

As it was not without reason, or without effect, that God was pleased, in ancient times, to manifest himself as a Father by means of expiations and sacrifices, and that he consecrated to himself a chosen people, there is no doubt that he was known, even then, in the same image in which he now appears to us with meridian splendour. Therefore Malachi, after having enjoined the Jews to attend to the law of Moses, and to persevere in the observance of it, (because after his death there was to be an interruption of the prophetical office,) immediately announces, that “the Sun of righteousness shall arise.”920In this language he suggests, that the law tended to excite in the pious an expectation of the Messiah that was to come, and that at his advent there was reason to hope for a much greater degree of light. For this reason Peter says that “the Prophets have inquired and searched diligently concerning the salvation,” which is now manifested in the gospel; and that “it was revealed [pg 381] to them, that not unto themselves, but unto us, they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you.”921Not that their instructions were useless to the ancient people, or unprofitable to themselves, but because they did not enjoy the treasure, which God through their hands has transmitted to us. For in the present day, the grace, which was the subject of their testimony, is familiarly exhibited before our eyes; and whereas they had but a small taste, we have offered to us a more copious fruition of it. Therefore Christ, who asserts that “Moses wrote of him,”922nevertheless extols that measure of grace in which we excel the Jews. Addressing his disciples, he says, “Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear.”923“For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.”924This is no small recommendation of the evangelical revelation, that God has preferred us to those holy fathers who were eminent for singular piety. To this declaration that other passage is not at all repugnant, where Christ says, “Abraham saw my day, and was glad.”925For though his prospect of a thing so very remote was attended with much obscurity, yet there was nothing wanting to the certainty of a well founded hope; and hence that joy which accompanied the holy patriarch even to his death. Neither does this assertion of John the Baptist, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him,”926exclude the pious, who had died before his time, from a participation of the understanding and light which shine in the person of Christ; but, comparing their condition with ours, it teaches us that we have a clear manifestation of those mysteries, of which they had only an obscure prospect through the medium of shadows; as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews more copiously and excellently shows, that “God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.”927Therefore, though the only begotten Son, who is now to us “the brightness of the glory, and the express image of the person,”928of God the Father, was formerly known to the Jews, as we have elsewhere shown by a quotation from Paul, that he was the leader of their ancient deliverance from Egypt; yet this also is a truth, which is asserted by the same Paul in another place, that “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in [pg 382] our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”929For when he appeared in this his image, he made himself visible, as it were, in comparison with the obscure and shadowy representation of him which had been given before. This renders the ingratitude and obstinacy of those, who shut their eyes amid this meridian blaze, so much the more vile and detestable. And therefore Paul says that Satan, “the god of this world, hath blinded their minds, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them.”930

II. Now, I understand the gospel to be a clear manifestation of the mystery of Christ. I grant indeed, since Paul styles the gospel the doctrine of faith,931that whatever promises we find in the law concerning the gracious remission of sins, by which God reconciles men to himself, are accounted parts of it. For he opposes faith to those terrors which torment and harass the conscience, if salvation is to be sought by works. Whence it follows, that taking the word gospel in a large sense, it comprehends all those testimonies, which God formerly gave to the fathers, of his mercy and paternal favour; but it is more eminently applicable to the promulgation of the grace exhibited in Christ. This acceptation is not only sanctioned by common use, but supported by the authority of Christ and the Apostles. Whence it is properly said of him, that he “preached the gospel of the kingdom.”932And Mark introduces himself with this preface: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” But it is needless to collect more passages to prove a thing sufficiently known. Christ, then, by his advent, “hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”933By these expressions Paul means, not that the fathers were immerged in the shades of death, till the Son of God became incarnate; but, claiming for the gospel this honourable prerogative, he teaches that it is a new and unusual kind of legation, in which God has performed those things that he had promised, that the truth of the promises might appear in the person of his Son. For though the faithful have always experienced the truth of the assertion of Paul, that “all the promises of God in him are Yea, and in him Amen,”934because they have been sealed in their hearts, yet, since he has completed in his body all the parts of our salvation, the lively exhibition of those things has justly obtained new and singular praise. Hence this declaration of Christ: “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”935For though he seems to allude to the ladder which [pg 383] the patriarch Jacob saw in a vision, yet he displays the superior excellence of his advent by this character—that he has opened the gate of heaven to give us free admittance into it.

III. Nevertheless, we must beware of the diabolical imagination of Servetus, who, while he designs to extol the magnitude of the grace of Christ, or at least professes such a design, totally abolishes all the promises, as though they were terminated together with the law. He pretends, that by faith in the gospel we receive the completion of all the promises; as though there were no distinction between us and Christ. I have just observed, that Christ left nothing incomplete of all that was essential to our salvation; but it is not a fair inference, that we already enjoy the benefits procured by him; for this would contradict the declaration of Paul, that “hope is laid up for us.”936I grant, indeed, that when we believe in Christ, we at the same time pass from death to life; but we should also remember the observation of John, that though “we are now the sons of God, it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”937Though Christ, therefore, offers us in the gospel a present plenitude of spiritual blessings, yet the fruition of them is concealed under the custody of hope, till we are divested of our corruptible body, and transfigured into the glory of him who has gone before us. In the mean time, the Holy Spirit commands us to rely on the promises; and his authority we ought to consider sufficient to silence all the clamours of Servetus. For according to the testimony of Paul, “godliness hath promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come;”938and therefore he boasts of being an Apostle of Christ; “according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus.”939In another place he apprizes us that we have the same promises which were given to the saints in former times.940Finally, he represents it as the summit of felicity, that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.941Nor, indeed, have we otherwise any enjoyment of Christ, any further than as we embrace him invested with his promises. Hence it is, that he dwells in our hearts, and yet we live like pilgrims at a distance from him; because “we walk by faith, and not by sight.” Nor is there any contrariety in these two positions, that we possess in Christ all that belongs to the perfection of the life of heaven, and yet that faith is a vision of invisible blessings. Only there is a difference to be observed in the nature or quality of the promises; because the gospel affords a clear discovery of that which the law has represented in shadows and types.

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IV. This likewise evinces the error of those who never make any other comparison between the Law and the Gospel, than between the merit of works and the gratuitous imputation of righteousness. This antithesis, I grant, is by no means to be rejected; because Paul by the word law frequently intends the rule of a righteous life, in which God requires of us what we owe to him, affording us no hope of life, unless we fulfil every part of it, and, on the contrary, annexing a curse if we are guilty of the smallest transgression. This is the sense in which he uses it in those passages, where he argues that we are accepted by God through grace, and are accounted righteous through his pardon of our sins, because the observance of the law, to which the reward is promised, is not to be found in any man. Paul, therefore, justly represents the righteousness of the law and that of the gospel as opposed to each other. But the gospel has not succeeded the whole law, so as to introduce a different way of salvation; but rather to confirm and ratify the promises of the law, and to connect the body with the shadows. For when Christ says that “the law and the prophets were until John,” he does not abandon the fathers to the curse which the slaves of the law cannot escape; he rather implies that they were only initiated in the rudiments of religion, so that they remained far below the sublimity of the evangelical doctrine. Wherefore, when Paul calls the gospel “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth,” he afterwards adds that it is “witnessed by the law and the prophets.”942But at the end of the same Epistle, although he asserts that the preaching of Jesus Christ is “the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began,” he qualifies this sentiment with the following explication—that it “is now made manifest, and by the Scriptures of the prophets made known to all nations.”943Hence we conclude, that when mention is made of the whole law, the gospel differs from it only with respect to a clear manifestation; but on account of the inestimable plenitude of grace, which has been displayed to us in Christ, the celestial kingdom of God is justly said to have been erected in the earth at his advent.

V. Now, John was placed between the Law and the Gospel, holding an intermediate office connected with both. For though, in calling Christ “the Lamb of God” and “the victim for the expiation of sins,”944he preached the substance of the gospel; yet, because he did not clearly express that incomparable power and glory which afterwards appeared in his resurrection, Christ affirms that he is not equal to the Apostles. This is his meaning in the following words: “Among them [pg 385] that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”945For he is not there commending the persons of men, but after having preferred John to all the prophets, he allots the highest degree of honour to the preaching of the gospel, which we have elsewhere seen is signified by “the kingdom of heaven.” When John himself said that he was only a “voice,”946as though he were inferior to the prophets, this declaration proceeded not from a pretended humility; he meant to signify that he was not intrusted with a proper embassy, but acted merely in the capacity of a herald, according to the prediction of Malachi: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”947Nor indeed, through the whole course of his ministry, did he aim at any thing but procuring disciples for Christ, which he also proves from Isaiah to have been the commission given him by God. In this sense he was called by Christ “a burning and a shining light,”948because the full day had not yet arrived. Yet this is no reason why he should not be numbered among the preachers of the gospel, as he used the same baptism which was afterwards delivered to the apostles. But it was not till after Christ was received into the celestial glory, that the more free and rapid progress of the apostles completed what John had begun.