5 Feb 2009
Section: 1.13.23-24
23. The Son is God even as the Father
From this morass another similar monster has come forth. For certain rascals, to escape the invidiousness and shame of Servetus’ impiety, indeed confessed that there are three persons; but they added the provision that the Father, who is truly and properly the sole God, in forming the Son and the Spirit, infused into them his own deity. Indeed, they do not refrain from this dreadful manner of speaking: the Father is distinguished from the Son and the Spirit by this mark, that he is the only “essence giver.” First they allege the specious argument that Christ is commonly called the Son of God and infer from this that no other than the Father is, properly speaking, God. Yet they do not observe that, even though the name “God” is also common to the Son, it is sometimes applied to the Father par excellence because he is the fountainhead and beginning of deity-and this is done to denote the simple unity of essence.
They object: if he is truly the Son of God, it is absurd to think of him as the Son of a person. I reply that both are true: that is, he is the Son of God, because the Word was begotten by the Father before all ages [cf. I Cor. 2:7] (for we do not yet have occasion to mention the person of the Mediator); and yet for the sake of clarification we must have regard to the person, so as not to take the name of God here without qualification, but as used of the Father. For if we consider no one but the Father to be God, we definitely cast the Son down from this rank. Therefore whenever mention is made of deity, we ought by no means to admit any antithesis between Son and Father, as if the name of the true God applied to the latter alone. For of course the God who manifested himself to Isaiah [Isa. 6:1] was the true and only God, the God whom nevertheless John affirms to have been Christ [John 12:41]. He who also through the mouth of Isaiah testified that he would be as a stone of stumbling for the Jews [Isa. 8:14] was the only God, whom Paul declared to have been Christ [Rom. 9:33]. When through Isaiah he proclaims, “I live” [Isa. 49:18]: “to me every knee shall bow” [Rom. 14:11, Vg.; cf. Isa. 45:24, Vg.], he is the sole God; yet Paul interprets the same to be Christ [Rom. 14:11]. To this are added the testimonies that the apostle puts forward: “Thou, O God, hast founded heaven and earth” [Heb. 1:10; Ps.102:25-26]. Likewise: “Let all the angels of God adore him.” [Heb. 1:6; Ps. 97:7.] These things are appropriate only to the sole God: nevertheless, he contends that they are proper titles of Christ. And there is no value in the subtle distinction that what is proper to God is transferred to Christ, because he is the splendor of his glory [Heb. 1:3]. For, since the name of Jehovah is set forth everywhere, it follows that with respect to his deity his being is from himself. For if he is Jehovah, it cannot be denied that he is that same God who elsewhere proclaims through Isaiah, “I, I am, and apart from me there is no God” [Isa. 44:6 p.]. Jeremiah’s utterance also bears considering: “The gods who did not make heaven and earth shall perish from the earth which is under heaven” [Jer. 10:11 p.].
On the other hand, it will be necessary to admit that the Son of God is he whose deity is quite often proved in Isaiah from the creation of the universe. But how will the Creator, who gives being to all, not have being from himself, but borrow his essence from elsewhere? For whoever says that the Son has been given his essence from the Father denies that he has being from himself. But the Holy Spirit gives the lie to this, naming him “Jehovah.” Now if we concede that all essence is in the Father alone, either it will become divisible or be taken away from the Son. And thus deprived of his essence, he will be God in name only. The essence of God, if these babblers are to be believed, belongs to the Father only, inasmuch as he alone is, and is the essence giver of the Son. Thus the divinity of the Son will be something abstracted from God’s essence, or a part derived from the whole.
Now they are compelled from their own presupposition to concede that the Spirit is of the Father alone, because if he is a derivation from the primal essence, which is proper only to the Father, he will not rightly be considered the Spirit of the Son. Yet this is disproved by Paul’s testimony, where he makes the Spirit common to Christ and the Father [Rom. 8:9]. Furthermore, if the person of the Father is expunged from the Trinity, in what respect would he differ from the Son and the Spirit except that only he is God himself? They confess Christ to be God, and yet to differ from the Father. Conversely, there must be some mark of differentiation in order that the Father may not be the Son. Those who locate that mark in the essence clearly annihilate Christ’s true deity, which without essence, and indeed the whole essence, cannot exist. Certainly the Father would not differ from the Son unless he had in himself something unique, which was not shared with the Son. Now what can they find to distinguish him? If the distinction is in the essence, let them answer whether or not he has shared it with the Son. Indeed, this could not be done in part because it would be wicked to fashion a half-God. Besides, in this way they would basely tear apart the essence of God. It remains that the essence is wholly and perfectly common to Father and Son. If this is true, then there is indeed with respect to the essence no distinction of one from the other. If they make rejoinder that the Father in bestowing essence nonetheless remains the sole God, in whom the essence is, Christ then will be a figurative God, a God in appearance and name only, not in reality itself. For there is nothing more proper to God than to be, according to that saying, “He who is has sent me to you” [Ex. 3:14, Vg.].
24. The name “God” in Scripture does not refer to the Father alone
From many passages one can readily refute as false their assumption that any unqualified reference to God in Scripture applies to the Father alone. In the very passages that they cite on their own side they shamelessly disclose their thoughtlessness, for the name of the Son is in these set beside that of the Father. From this it appears that the name of God is understood in a relative sense, and is therefore to be restricted to the person of the Father. Thus their objection, “Unless the Father alone were truly God, he would be his own Father,” is removed with one word. Nor, indeed, is it absurd for him who not only has begotten his own wisdom from himself but is also the God of the Mediator, as I shall treat more fully in its proper place, to be specially called God on account of degree and rank. For from the time that Christ was manifested in the flesh, he has been called the Son of God, not only in that he was the eternal Word begotten before all ages from the Father, but because he took upon himself the person and office of the Mediator, that he might join us to God. And since they so brazenly exclude the Son from the honor of God, I should like to know, when he declares that no one is good except the one God [Matt 19: 17], whether he deprives himself of goodness. I am not speaking of his human nature, lest they counter that whatever good there was in it flowed from a free gift. I ask whether the eternal Word of God is good or not. If they deny it, their impiety stands sufficiently convicted; by admitting it, they cut their own throats. But the fact that at first glance Christ seems to put away from himself the name of “good” all the more confirms our contention. Surely, since it is the singular title of the one God, when as he was greeted as “good” in the common manner of speaking, Christ repudiated the false honor, and so admonished them that the goodness with
which he was endowed was divine.
I also ask, when Paul affirmed that God alone is immortal [I Tim. 1:17], wise [Rom. 16:27], and true [Rom. 3:4], whether by these words Christ is reduced to the level of stupid and false mortals. Will he not therefore be immortal who from the beginning was life to confer immortality upon the angels? Will he not be wise who is God’s eternal wisdom? Will he not be true who is truth itself? Furthermore, I ask whether they think Christ ought to be worshiped or not. For if he rightly claimed for himself that every knee should bow before him [Phil. 2:10], it follows that he is the God who in the law forbade anyone else than himself to be worshiped [Ex. 20:3]. If they mean to be understood of the Father alone what is said in Isaiah, “I am, and there is none beside me” [Isa. 44:6 p.], I turn this testimony back upon them, when we see that whatever is of God is attributed to Christ. Nor is there any place for their subtle distinction that Christ was exalted in the flesh in which he had been humbled, and in respect to the flesh all power has been given to him in heaven and on earth. For even though the majesty of King and Judge is extended to the whole person of the Mediator, yet unless he had been God manifested in the flesh he could not have been raised to such a height without God himself striving against himself. And Paul best settles this controversy, teaching that he was equal to God before he humbled himself under the form of a servant [Phil. 2:6-7]. Indeed, how would this equality stand had he not been the God whose name is Jah and Jehovah, who rides above the cherubim [cf. Ps. 17:10; 79:2; 98:1, all Vg.], who is King of the whole earth [Ps. 46:8, Vg.], and King of the ages? Now no matter how they grumble they cannot take away from Christ what Isaiah says elsewhere: “He, he is our God; we have waited for him” [Isa. 25:9 p.]. With these words he describes the coming of God the Redeemer who not only led the people back from the Babylonian exile but fully restored the church to all its numbers.
And they will not benefit at all by another evasion, that Christ was God in his Father. For even though we admit that in respect to order and degree the beginning of divinity is in the Father, yet we say that it is a detestable invention that essence is proper to the Father alone, as if he were the deifier of the Son. For in this way either essence would be manifold or they call Christ “God” in title and imagination only. If they grant that the Son is God, but second to the Father, then in him will be begotten and formed the essence that is in the Father unbegotten and unformed. I know that many censorious persons laugh at us for deriving the distinction of the persons from Moses’ words, where he introduces God as speaking thus: “Let us make man in our own image” [Gen. i: 26]; yet pious readers see how uselessly and absurdly Moses would have introduced this conversation, so to speak, if not more than one person subsisted in the one God. It is certain that those whom the Father is addressing were uncreated; but there is nothing uncreated except God himself, and he is one. Now therefore unless they grant that the power of creating was common to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, common also the authority to command, it will follow that God did not speak thus within himself, but addressed other outside artificers. Finally, one passage easily rids us at once of two of their objections. For what Christ himself declared, that “God is Spirit” [John 4:24], would not be appropriately restricted to the Father alone, as if the Word were not himself of a spiritual nature. But if the name “Spirit” fits the Son equally with the Father, I conclude that the Son is to be comprehended under the unparticularized name “God.” Nevertheless he adds immediately after that no one else but those who worship the Father in spirit and in truth prove themselves to be worshipers of the Father [John 4:23]. From this follows the other point: since Christ exercises the office of Teacher under the Head [the Father], he ascribes to the Father the name of God, not to abolish his own deity, but to raise us up to it by degrees.
