Exposition of the Christian Faith.
Chapter 11
‸132. Are we indeed to bring the Son of God to such a low estate that He may not know how to act or speak, except as He hears, and are we to suppose that a fixed measure of action or of speech is assigned to Him, because it is written: “I speak not of Myself,” and, further on: “As the Father hath said unto Me, even so I speak”? But those words have reference to the obedience of the flesh, or else to the faith in the Unity. For many learned men allow that the Son hears, and that the Father speaks to the Son through the unity of their Nature; for that which the Son, through the unity of their will, knows that the Father wills, He seems to have heard.
133. Whereby is meant no personal duty, but an indivisible sentence of co-operation. For this does not signify any actual hearing of words, but the unity of will and of power, which exists both in the Father and in the Son. He has stated that this exists also in the Holy Spirit, in another place, saying, “For He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak,” so that we may learn that whatsoever the Spirit says, the Son also says; and whatsoever the Son says, the Father says also; for there is one mind and one mode of working in the Trinity. For, as the Father is seen in the Son, not indeed in bodily appearance, but in the unity of the Godhead, so also the Father speaks in the Son, not with a voice of earth, not with a human sound, but in the unity of Their work. So when He had said: “The Father that dwelleth in Me, He speaketh; and the works that I do, He doeth;” He added: “Believe Me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; or else believe Me for the very work’s sake.”
134. This is what we understand according to the whole course of the holy Scriptures; but the Arians, who will not think of God the things that be right, may be put to silence by an example just suited to their deserts; that they may not believe everything in carnal fashion, since they themselves do not see the works of their father the devil with bodily eyes. So the Lord has declared of their fellows the Jews, saying: “Ye do what ye have seen your father doing;” though they are reproved not because they saw the work of the devil, but because they did his will, since the devil unseen works out sin in them in accordance with their own wickedness. We have written this, as the Apostle did, because of the folly of these traitors.
135. But we have sufficiently proved by examples from Scripture that it is a property of the unity of the divine majesty that the Father should abide in the Son, and that the Son should seem to have heard from the Father those things which He speaks. How else can we understand the unity of majesty than by the knowledge that the same deference is paid to the Father and the Son? For what can be better put than the Apostle’s saying that the Lord of glory was crucified?
136. The Son then is the God of glory and the Lord of glory, but glory is not subject to creatures; the Son therefore is not a creature.
137. The Son is the Image of the Father’s Substance; but every creature is unlike that divine Substance, but the Son of the Father is not unlike God; therefore the Son is not a creature.
138. The Son thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but no creature is equal with God, the Son, however, is equal; therefore the Son is not a creature.
139. Every creature is changeable; but the Son of God is not changeable; therefore the Son of God is not a creature.
140. Every creature meets with chance occurrences of good and evil after the powers of its nature, and also feels their passing away; but nothing can pass away from or bring addition to the Son of God in His Godhead; therefore the Son of God is not a creature.
141. Every work of His God will bring into judgment; but the Son of God is not brought into judgment; for He Himself judges; therefore the Son of God is not a creature.
142. Lastly, that thou mayest understand the unity, the Saviour in speaking of His sheep says: “No man is able to pluck them out of My hand. My Father Which gave them to Me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.”
143. So the Son gives life as does the Father. “For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will.” So the Son raises up as does the Father: so too the Son preserves as does the Father. He Who is not unequal in grace, how is He unequal in power? So also the Son does not destroy, as neither does the Father. Therefore lest any one should believe there were two Gods, or should imagine a diversity of power, He said that He was one with His Father. How can a creature say that? Therefore the Son of God is not a creature.
144. It is not the same thing to rule as to serve; but Christ is both a King and the Son of a King. The Son of God therefore is not a servant. Every creature, however, gives service. But the Son of God, Who makes servants become the sons of God, does not give service. Therefore the Son of God is not a servant.
Chapter 12
‸‸145. In divine fashion has He represented that parable of the rich man, who went to a far-off country to receive a kingdom, and to return, thus describing Himself in the substance of the Godhead, and of His Manhood. For He being rich in the fulness of His Godhead, Who was made poor for us though He was rich and an eternal King, and the Son of an eternal King; He, I say, went to a foreign country in taking on Him a body, for He entered upon the ways of men as though upon a strange journey, and came into this world to prepare for Himself a kingdom from amongst us.
146. Jesus therefore came to this earth to receive for Himself a kingdom from us, to whom He says: “The kingdom of God is within you.” This is the kingdom which Christ has received, this the kingdom which He has delivered to the Father. For how did He receive for Himself a kingdom, Who was a King eternal? “The Son of Man therefore came to receive a kingdom and to return.” The Jews were unwilling to acknowledge Him, of whom He says: “They which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them.”
147. Let us follow the course of the Scriptures. He Who came will deliver up the kingdom to God the Father; and when He has delivered up the kingdom, then also shall He be subject to Him, Who has put all things in subjection under Him, that God may be all in all. If the Son of God has received the kingdom as Son of Man, surely as Son of Man also He will deliver up what He has received. If He delivers it up as Son of Man, as Son of Man He confesses His subjection indeed under the conditions of the flesh, and not in the majesty of His Godhead.
148. And dost thou make objections and contemn Him, because God has put all things in subjection under Him, when thou hearest that the Son of Man delivers up the kingdom to God, and hast read, as we said in our earlier books: “No man can come to Me, except the Father draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day”? If we follow it literally, see rather and notice the unity of honour each gives to other: The Father has put all things in subjection under the Son, and the Son delivers the kingdom to the Father. Say now which is the greater, to deliver up, or to raise up to life? Do we not after human fashion speak of the service of delivering up, and the power of raising to life? But both the Son delivers up to the Father, and also the Father to the Son. The Son raises to life, and the Father also raises to life. Let them create the fiction of a blasphemous division where there is a unity of power.
149. Let the Son then deliver up His kingdom to the Father. The kingdom which He delivers up is not lost to Christ, but grows. We are the kingdom, for it was said to us: “The kingdom of God is within you.” And we are the kingdom, first of Christ, then of the Father; as it is written: “No man cometh to the Father, but by Me.” When I am on the way, I am Christ’s; when I have passed through, I am the Father’s; but everywhere through Christ, and everywhere under Him.
150. It is a good thing to be in the kingdom of Christ, so that Christ may be with us; as He Himself says: “Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” But it is better to be with Christ: “For to depart and be with Christ is far better.” Though we are under sin in this world, Christ is with us, that “by the obedience of one man many may be made just.” And if I escape the sin of this world, I shall begin to be with Christ. And so He says: “I will come again, and receive you unto Myself;” and further on: “I will that where I am, there ye may be also with Me.”
151. Therefore we are now under Christ’s rule, whilst we are in the body, and are not yet stripped of the form of a servant, which He put upon Him, when He “emptied Himself.” But when we shall see His glory, which He had before the world was, we shall be in the kingdom of God, in which are the patriarchs and prophets, of whom it is written: “When ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God;” and shall thus acquire a deeper knowledge of God.
152. But in the kingdom of the Son the Father also reigns; and in the kingdom of the Father the Son also reigns: for the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father; and in whomsoever the Son dwells, in him also the Father dwells; and in whomsoever the Father dwells, in him also the Son dwells, as it is written: “Both I and My Father will come to Him, and make Our abode with Him.” Thus as there is one dwelling, so also there is one kingdom. Yea, and so far is the kingdom of the Father and of the Son but one, that the Father receives what the Son delivers, and the Son does not lose what the Father receives. Thus in the one kingdom there is a unity of power. Let no one therefore sever the Godhead between the Father and the Son.