THE BIBLICAL STUDIES OF M. GODET.
(Continued from p. 255)
We must now speak of two phrases of which M. Godet makes use: “Christ learned obedience” and “I sanctify myself for them.” As regards the former, it is not said, “He learned to obey.” Had He not at all times been perfect in obedience, He had not been the victim without blemish. “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God,” was the rule and motive of His human life and existence. At its beginning Satan sought to make Him depart from it; but Christ conquered him. At the close, Satan having returned with all that could turn Christ, from obedience, even to the prospect of being forsaken of God, all this became to Jesus but the occasion for a perfect obedience. “He was obedient even unto death, and [that the] death of [the] cross,”
He who, being in the form of God, had made Himself a servant, He had to learn what obedience was, and that in a world of sin. Now, the will of the Father was not merely a rule to Him, it was His positive motive power. “Man,” He said, “lives by every word which goes out through. God's mouth.” Such, ever and absolutely, was His life. He was now more and more tried, deserted, despised, betrayed. The human judge delivering over innocence to the malice of His enemies; the priests, instead of pleading for those out of the way, pleading against the innocent One; the hour of man was the power of darkness; finally, Christ was there forsaken of God;—nothing had power to arrest Him in the path of obedience. His piety could but make Him desire to avoid the curse (He was made a curse for us), but His Father gave Him the cup; we ought to know what that has been in result. But obedience was then consummated. By those things that He suffered He learned what obedience, absolute obedience, was. This to Him was all He had to learn. He had ever done the Father's will, and, I repeat it, the Father's will was His motive power. Had there been no will of His Father, there had been no motive of action in Him as man. This is what is called the obedience of Christ.
As to the other phrase, “I sanctify myself for them,” it is only necessary to notice the occasion when the Lord makes use of it. (John 17) He was speaking these words when about to depart. Then He could say thus, “I am no longer in the world,” and it is in this manner He set's Himself apart (sanctifies Himself) in the glory, that they might become changed into the same image from glory to glory. He does not say, “I have sanctified myself,” that is, during His life, but “I sanctify myself for them.” Christ—a man—set apart and glorified is the pattern and source of our sanctification. The Holy Spirit takes the things of Christ, and shows them unto us. “We know.... we shall be like him.... and every one that hath this hope in him, purifies himself, even as he is pure.” We are never required to be like Him down here. In Him was no flesh of sin. He who was born of Mary was holy. In us is the flesh. We are called to walk even as He walked, because we ought not to walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Our condition is falsified by M. Godet's system; no true new life is communicated; it is by a free action of our own will that we appropriate to ourselves the Holy Spirit. The person and the life of the Savior are also presented in it in a false manner.
God's word presents us the Word made flesh—God in Christ; the Father so revealed in the Son, that He could say, “He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father.” It presents Him to us holy from His birth—Emmanuel, God with us. It presents us man wicked, without any exception—without excuse for their sin, because the Son came and spoke, and did works such as none other could have done; but, in spite of all, they saw and hated both Him and His Father. Jehovah was there, come as man to receive the tongue of the learned, to make experience of divine life in a man, that He might know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. But when He came, there was no. man; those who have received Him, John tells us, are born, not of the will of man, but of God..
Such a Christ wholly disappears from M. Godet's system. We have merely a man, innocent (not even holy), who had to attain to holiness by self-conflicts who had to acquire spiritual life (I have sufficiently quoted his own words)—a man who, having previously had certain elementary sentiments, felt Himself to be Son, solely at the time of His baptism (p. 156)—a man, who became again Son, as regards His conditions of existence, first by His resurrection, and afterward by His ascension. The italics are M. Godet's own. Man, endowed with an absolute perfectness, and being able now (that is, since Christ) to recommence his career of perfectness, which perfectness had been interrupted by Adam's sin, and to recommence it by the free action of his own will, little by little appropriates Christ to himself by faith, and gradually banishes flesh from him. It is thus that sinful man becomes another man, and like Christ Himself. Scriptural truth, with respect to man, has disappeared in this system, as well as the precious truth concerning the person of Christ.
Notice here, that if it be true that we shall be like Christ in His glory, it is no less true that the word always vindicates the personal glory of the Son of God during His days in the flesh. Moses and Elias appeared in the same glory as Christ, but the moment Peter would place them on the same footing, both disappear, and the Father's voice declares that Christ is His well-beloved Son. The heavens are opened to Stephen as to Jesus; not only is he sealed, but filled with the Holy Spirit. But Stephen looks up, and becomes morally like Christ. Christ never looked up in order to become anything; it is the heavens which look down because Christ is there, and that the Father recognizes Him as His Son, sealed according to His own personal perfection.
If one is to believe M. Godet, Jesus recommences the career of fallen man by starting from the condition of an innocent man who acquires holiness and attains spiritual life; who, in fact, again becomes. Son; in His state of existence human nature is elevated to the possession of divine life.
In the word Jesus is the Holy One of God; born holy, He has life in Himself—a life which is the light of men. He is the Son, who quickens whom He will.
M. Godet presents to us another Christ than the Christ of the word, even if we consider Him only as man. In the word He ever goes lower down, in contrast with the first man, who sought by usurpation and disobedience to be like God; whilst He who was in the form of God, and in divine estate, as the obedient man, went down even to the death of the cross. For M. Godet, it is the innocent man who rises to the state of holiness. For the word, it is God who exalts Him, because He went down to the utmost.
There is another element which we must consider in the life of Jesus. M. Godet first makes Him to have been free from sin, and secondly that there had been with Him self-conflict. That no external restraint held Him from sinning, this is true; but His liberty was that of a perfectly holy nature, entire love for His Father and for us. If it had been possible to deprive Jesus of liberty, this would have hindered Him from doing good and obeying His Father. He sought and desired nothing but that; it was His food. His liberty was the liberty of a perfectly holy nature, which was tried by everything that could hinder it from going on to the end in the accomplishment of the will of His Father. Such a trial only served to show the absolute perfection of His holiness and of His obedience. In His life, as Savior and sacrifice, there was neither leaven nor honey—salt there was. Tried in the fire of God's judgment, there was but sweet savor for God. Every morsel of that cake of fine flour was anointed with oil, as also in its origin it had been steeped with oil. (Lev. 2)
M. Godet will have that He had conflicts (p. 113). “He felt happy in the temple, as a child in His Father's house;” nevertheless “He subjected Himself to His parents, and returned with them to Nazareth, but surely not without sacrifice and conflict.” But He had come to do His Father's will, and that was in this case that He should return to Nazareth. According to M. Godet, Jesus must have had conflict with His own will, which resisted the will of His Father! Is not this a complete invention of M. Godet? The same thing occurred in the desert (p. 114). Hunger is surely not sin. Jesus hungered, but He waited on God: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that goes out through God's mouth.” No word had gone forth from that month, and to Him life was in that word. He lived by the Father. There is no conflict in the desert; there is but one answer to Satan, and that answer establishes the perfection of Him who was tempted. Conflict in Christ is an invention of M. Godet, as well as the “immolation” of His will, or of His legitimate tendencies, or of “His purest enjoyment” (p. 113). Hunger is not sin, nor are legitimate natural affections, but self-will is sin. To, have God's will as the motive and spring of ours, is pure, simple, and absolute obedience; it is the normal condition of a servant, of whom Christ took the form. At page 114 we read that in John 12 “another voice, that of the spirit,” replies to the cry of His nature (already expressed “before all the people"), and sways the first voice in Him, Thus, then, a will was impressed in Christ which was other than the will of His Father, and contrary to it. Such is M. Godet's teaching; but if so, it was sin in Christ. Created sensibilities are not sin, but self-will mixed with them introduces sin. Such is the position this system attributes to Jesus.
This last instance is connected with another principle, more fully developed by the author at the circumstance of Gethsemane (p. 116). “The first voice, the voice of the flesh, says, ‘Let this cup pass from me.” Sensibility to suffering is, I repeat, no sin; but it is wretchedly poor to reduce the feelings of the Savior here to the fear of the suffering only. It makes a far finer testimony of the death of Stephen (and it may be said of a multitude of Christians) than of the death of Jesus. Does the mere dread of death cause man to sweat great drops of blood? One well understands the impossibility of sounding the depths of that cup given Him to drink by the Father, death, as the judgment of God. But then “fear” of that is “piety” (Heb. 5:7), and the cup of which we speak was the only one from which Jesus shrank. Never did He say of any other, “let this cup pass from me.” Many a bitter cup was given Him by man, and His own. Who could not feel the curse when it was there? Who could ever have felt it as Jesus, who lived in His Father's love? (Compare Heb. 5)
Before passing on to the work itself, let us see how M. Godet presents the road to it. We have seen that, according to his system, Christ needed to progress from innocence on to holiness, and from holiness on to glory; but a special phase exists from each of these different degrees to the other. It is true that holiness is connected with the revelation of glory to the heart; but M. Godet is very far from seeing the side of grace, namely, that eternal life is the gift of God, who has given it to us, that that life is in His Son, and that he that hath the Son hath life. He says, in fact, with regard to Jesus (p. 132), “Human nature is elevated in its normal representative to the possession of divine life.” That which I am now examining is the different phases of these successive degrees of progress, and the bearings of the progress itself with the cross. Jesus, by self-conflict and against a will which was not that of God, was to raise Himself from innocence to holiness; and this was completely attained by the Savior at the moment of the transfiguration. It matters but little that the object of that remarkable event was quite different in the word; it is the system we are examining. According to that system, Christ might thus have entered into glory, having then, and not till then, been rendered fit for the glory. This system tells us that till then His holiness was imperfect; but now, at the time of the transfiguration, Christ had attained spiritual life
It is in vain that the word says; “No one has gone up into heaven save he who came down out of heaven, the Son of man, who is in heaven;” the progress made by Christ, according to M. Godet's system, rendered Him meet to enter heaven as Son of man (p. 121). “A royal road had originally been traced for Him, conducting, by, trial and moral progress; from innocence to holiness—this was the first stage; afterward by a glorious physical and spiritual transformation, from holiness to glory. The key to the narrative of the transfiguration is found in this thought.” Adam, to whom this road had been traced, failed; death entered. Jesus, having recommenced this career afresh, completed it, and reached this culminating point. The transfiguration was the first step on the road to glory.
Moses and Elias were the messengers who came to conduct Him into it. M. Godet will explain it all to us (p. 122). “The light from within Him, illuminated from above, eradiated through His person, making even His garments to shine” “The cloud is as the chariot” to bear Him. But now everything changes, for (p. 123) “two opposite ways of quitting this terrestrial life presented themselves to Him at this moment. One, that to which He was entitled by His holiness.... the glorious transformation Jesus could have accepted this triumphant departure, and God must offer it Him; for it was the reward due to His holiness. But returning thus to heaven, Jesus must have returned alone; the door could but close after Him.” Then (pp. 123, 124) “Jesus contemplated another, which accomplished itself at Jerusalem That exodus of suffering was that of which He conversed with the two great representatives of the old covenant, and which He declares to them He prefers and accepts.” We had always supposed that the Son of man had come to give His life a ransom for many; that He had been made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. It seems we were mistaken; He had acquired for Himself the title to enter heaven by holiness, and God must offer Him glory; but He converses with Moses and Elias; then, the two ways offering themselves to Him (for it was still uncertain, uncertain even up to that moment, if Jesus Himself were entitled to enter there), He declares that He prefers and accepts the road of death. What would have become of Moses and Elias had the door been closed? “for,” says the author (p. 123), “the gate [of heaven] could only close behind Him;” had He departed this earthly existence by its normal exit, to which the transfiguration itself was the prelude.
I repeat these things with sorrow, but to show the folly of such inventions. Is this, I ask, Christianity? Assuredly it is not that of the Bible.
This brings us to the work of Christ. This is M. Godet's starting-point (p. 158). “God has surely not done more for guilty man than He would have done for the obedient man. He has only done differently.” Can one conceive a greater absence of all ideas of grace? It is merely a question of man's deserts, those of the guilty and the obedient man. God is excluded from M. Godet's thoughts to a degree that is scarcely credible. God would show to the ages to come the unspeakable riches of His grace in His goodness towards us. To M. Godet the question merely concerns the preference given to an obedient man. And if obedience were in question, would Adam's abstaining from the forbidden fruit bear any resemblance to the obedience of Jesus, forsaken of God And as to the manner even of performing this, this result in man (as M. Godet says, p. 158), would it in any way have resembled the obedience of the Lord? Was God in Adam reconciling the world unto Himself? Was the Father revealed in the Son, in Adam? It is, says M. Godet, but another method of producing the same result!! The full development of evil in man—the perfection of good in the man—Christ—the power of Satan, prince of this world—the manifestation on the cross of God's righteous judgment against sin—the love of God, and at the same time His infinite grace—and that by the means of the perfection of obedience and love displayed in Christ, there where sin came before God, when Christ was made sin—all this become the basis and the earnest of the new heavens and new earth, wherein righteousness shall dwell—finally, a work wherein good and evil culminated, and where the question of good and evil was resolved for eternity; all this, according to M. Godet, is of no more worth, and will certainly produce no other result than would have been produced by Adam abstaining from the forbidden fruit!
Where was the righteousness of God in Adam? (Compare John 13:31, 32; 16:1031Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. (John 13:31‑32)
10Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; (John 16:10).) Is it possible a Christian can be blind to such a degree? But I said I would refrain from expressing my feelings. “Hereby have we known love, because he laid down his life for us.” What means could Adam have used to make known to us that divine love, a love surpassing all knowledge? The value of the work of the cross will be depreciated in Christians in proportion as they assent to M. Godet's system. Two principles constitute the importance of this system (p. 178). It was needful that the rights of God's righteousness should be recognized, manifested, exercised (pp. 174, 175). It was “order maintained in the bosom of disorder, without liberty being touched” But “mere suffering no longer sufficed....” “‘The wages of sin is death.' I can live without thee, and in spite of thee, says man to God, when thus acting.” “Thy life is a gift; that gift is withdrawn: such is the legitimate answer of divine justice to this provocation. Immediate death, death by the shedding of the blood of the guilty, this is the punishment of sin.”