Chapter III.
Of the agent or chief author of the work of our redemption, and of the first thing distinctly ascribed to the person of the Father.
I. The agent in, and chief author of, this great work of our redemption is the whole blessed Trinity; for all the works which outwardly are of the Deity are undivided and belong equally to each person, their distinct manner of subsistence and order being observed. It is true, there were sundry other instrumental causes in the oblation, or rather passion of Christ but the work cannot in any sense be ascribed unto them; — for in respect of God the Father, the issue of their endeavours was exceeding contrary to their own intentions, and in the close they did nothing but what the “hand and counsel of God had before determined should be done,” Acts iv. 28; and in respect of Christ they were no way able to accomplish what they aimed at, for he himself laid down his life, and none was able to take it from him, John x. 17, 18: so that they are to be excluded from this consideration. In the several persons of the holy Trinity, the joint author of the whole work, the Scripture proposeth distinct and sundry acts or operations peculiarly assigned unto them; which, according to our weak manner of apprehension, we are to consider severally and apart; which also we shall do, beginning with them that are ascribed to the Father.
II. Two peculiar acts there are in this work of our redemption by the blood of Jesus, which may be and are properly assigned to the person of the Father:— First, The sending of his Son into the world for this employment. Secondly, A laying the punishment due to our sin upon him.
1. The Father loves the world, and sends his Son to die: He “sent his Son into the world that the world through him might be saved,” John iii. 16, 17. He “sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us,” Rom. viii. 3, 4. He “set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood,” chap. iii. 25. For “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons,” Gal. iv. 4, 5. So more than twenty times in the Gospel of John there is mention of this sending; and our Saviour describes himself by this periphrasis, “Him whom the Father hath sent,” John x. 36; and the Father by this, “He who sent me,” chap. v. 37. So that this action of sending is appropriate to the Father, according to his promise that he would “send us a Saviour, a great one, to deliver us,” Isa. xix. 20; and to the profession of our Saviour, “I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me,” Isa. xlviii. 16. Hence the Father himself is sometimes called our Saviour: 1 Tim. i. 1, “According to the commandment Θεοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν,” — “of God our Saviour.” Some copies, indeed, read it, Θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν, — “of God and our Saviour;” but the interposition of that particle καὶ arose, doubtless, from a misprision that Christ alone is called Saviour. But directly this is the same with that parallel place of Tit. i. 3, Κατ’ ἐπιταγὴν τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Θεοῦ, — “According to the commandment of God our Saviour,” where no interposition of that conjunctive particle can have place; the same title being also in other places ascribed to him, as Luke i. 47, “My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.” As also 1 Tim. iv. 10, “We trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe;” though in this last place it be not ascribed unto him with reference to his redeeming us by Christ, but his saving and preserving all by his providence. So also Tit. ii. 10, iii. 4; Deut. xxxii. 15; 1 Sam. x. 19; Ps. xxiv. 5, xxv. 5; Isa. xii. 2, xl. 10, xlv. 15; Jer. xiv. 8; Micah vii. 7; Hab. iii. 18; most of which places have reference to his sending of Christ, which is also distinguished into three several acts, which in order we must lay down:—
(1.) An authoritative imposition of the office of Mediator, which Christ closed withal by his voluntary susception of it, willingly undergoing the office, wherein by dispensation the Father had and exercised a kind of superiority, which the Son, though “in the form of God,” humbled himself unto, Phil. ii. 6–8. And of this there may conceived two parts:—
[1.] The purposed imposition of his counsel, or his eternal counsel for the setting apart of his Son incarnate to this office, saying unto him, “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession,” Ps. ii. 7, 8. He said unto him, “Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool;” for “the Lord swore, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek,” Ps. cx. 1, 4. He appointed him to be “heir of all things,” Heb. i. 2, having “ordained him to be Judge of quick and dead,” Acts x. 42; for unto this he was “ordained before the foundation of the world,” 1 Pet. i. 20., and “determined, ὁρισθείς, to be the Son of God with power,” Rom. i. 4, “that he might be the first-born among many brethren,” chap. viii. 29. I know that this is an act eternally established in the mind and will of God, and so not to be ranged in order with the others, which are all temporary, and had their beginning in the fulness of time, of all which this first is the spring and fountain, according to that of James, Acts xv. 18, “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world;” but yet, it being no unusual form of speaking that the purpose should also be comprehended in that which holds out the accomplishment of it, aiming at truth and not exactness, we pass it thus.