By Water & Blood

Chapter 3

(d) That the same Prophet also plainly confesses Two Lords in Ps. cix.: the One, the First and Highest God; the Other, Whom He calls His Own Lord, and that He was begotten by God before the Foundation of the World, and He knows the Second God, and that He is the High Priest Eternal of the Father, shares the Throne of the God of the Universe, holding the same Faith as We about Christ.

[Passage quoted, Ps. cix. 1-5.]

THE Lord upon thy right hand! The Psalmist here calls "Lord," our Lord and Saviour, the Word of God, "firstborn of every creature," the Wisdom before the ages, the Beginning of the Ways of God, the Firstborn and Only-begotten Offspring of the Father, Him Who is honoured with the Name of Christ, teaching that He both shares the seat (220) and is the Son of the Almighty God and Universal Lord, and the Eternal High-Priest of the Father. First, then, understand that here this Second Being, the Offspring of God, is addressed. And since prophecy is believed by us to be spoken by the Spirit of God, see if it is not the case that the Holy Spirit in the prophet names as His own Lord (b) a Second Being after the Lord of the Universe, for he says, "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand." The Hebrews named the First Person Lord, as being universally the Lord of all, by the unspeakable Name expressed in the four letters. They did not call the Second Person Lord in a like sense, but only used the word as a special title. Naturally, then, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ Himself, |239 the Son of God, when He inquired of the Pharisees, "What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he?" on their saying, "The son of David," asked, "How then can David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand"? practically interpreting the text as not only calling Him the Lord of David, but the Lord also of the Spirit in the prophet. And if the prophetic Spirit, which we believe to be the Holy Spirit, confesses Him to be Lord, Who He teaches shares the Father's Throne, and not generally but as "His own Lord," how incomparably more certain is it that the rational powers, who corne after the Holy Spirit, must say the same, and the whole visible creation, embodied and unembodied, of which of course the only Sharer of the Father's Throne would be marked out as Lord, by Whose agency all things came into being, as the holy apostle says: "In him all things were created, of things in heaven, and things in earth, visible and invisible." For He alone would have the authority of likeness to the Father, as being the only Person shewn to be throned with Him.

Since, then, Christ neither entered on His priesthood in time, nor sprang from the priestly tribe, nor was anointed with prepared and outward oil, nor will ever reach the |242 end of His priesthood, nor will be established only for the Jews but for all nations, for all these reasons He is rightly said to have forsaken the priesthood after Aaron's type, and to be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. And the fulfilment of the oracle is truly wondrous, to one who recognizes how our Saviour Jesus the Christ of God even now performs through His ministers even to-day i sacrifices after the manner of Melchizedek's. For just as he, who was priest of the Gentiles, is not represented as offering outward sacrifices, but as blessing Abraham only with wine and bread, in exactly the same way our Lord and Saviour Himself first, and then all His priests among all nations, perform the spiritual sacrifice according to the customs of the Church, and with wine and bread darkly express the mysteries of His Body and saving Blood. This by the Holy Spirit Melchizedek foresaw, and used the figures of what was to come, as the Scripture of Moses witnesses, when it says:

"And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine: and he was priest of the Most High God, and he blessed Abraham."

And thus it followed that only to Him with the addition of an oath:

"The Lord God sware, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." 

Hear, too, what the apostle also says about this:

"17. Wherein God willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of the kingdom the immutability of his counsel mediated it by an oath: 18. That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us." 

And he adds:

"23. And they indeed have been made priests many in number, because that by death they were hindered from continuing. 24. But he, because he abideth, hath an unchangeable priesthood. 25. Wherein he is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto (b) God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession |243 for them. 26. For such an high priest became us, who is holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens." 

And he adds:

"1. Now in the things which we are saying the chief point is this: We have such an high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, 2. a minister of the holy things, and of the true tabernacle, which God has pitched, and not man." 

So says the apostle.

The Psalm too, continuing, shews in veiled phrase even the Passion of the Subject of the prophecy, saying: "He shall drink of the brook in the way, therefore shall he lift up his head." And another Psalm shews "the brook" to mean the time of temptations: "Our soul hath passed through the brook, yea, our soul has passed through the deep waters." He drinks, then, in the brook, it says, that cup, evidently, of which He darkly spoke at the time of His Passion, when He said: "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." And also, "If it be not possible for it to pass from me, except I drink it, thy will be done."

It was, then, by drinking this cup that He lifted up His head, as the apostle also says, for when he was "Obedient to the Father unto death, even the death of the cross, therefore," he says, "God hath highly exalted him," raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at His right hand, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name which is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come. And He hath put all things in subjection under his feet, according to the promise made to Him, which He expresses through the Psalmist, saying, "Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feel. Be thou ruler in the midst of thine enemies."

It is plain to all that to-day the power of our Saviour and the word of His teaching rule over all them that have believed in Him, in the midst of His enemies and foes. |244