CHAPTER IX.01

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.”920 In 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.”921 Not 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,”922 nevertheless 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.”924 This 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.”925 For 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,”926 exclude 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.”927 Therefore, though the only begotten Son, who is now to us “the brightness of the glory, and the express image of the person,”928 of 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.”929 For 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,931 that 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.”932 And 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.”933 By 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,”934 because 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.”935 For 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.